Suddenly there came a sharp footstep and the rustle of a woman’s silken skirts across the stone flags behind her.  She looked up quickly; Helen stood beside her.  Helen, in all the sheen of her gay Paris garments, with the evening light upon her uncovered head, and the glow of a passion, fiercer than madness, in her glittering eyes.  Some prescience of evil—­she knew not of what—­made Vera spring to her feet.

Helen spoke to her shortly and defiantly.

“Miss Nevill, you are waiting here for my husband, are you not?”

A faint flush rose in Vera’s face.

“Yes,” she answered, very quietly.  “I am waiting to speak a few words to him.”

“You have something to give him, have you not?  Some letters that are mine, and which you have probably read.”

Helen said the words quickly and feverishly; her voice shook and trembled.  Vera looked surprised and even indignant.

“I don’t understand you, Mrs. Kynaston,” she began, coldly.

“Oh, yes, you understand me perfectly.  Give me my letters, Miss Nevill; you have no doubt read them all,” and she laughed harshly and sneeringly.

“Mrs. Kynaston, you are labouring under some delusion,” said Vera, quietly; “I have no letters of yours, and if I had,” with a ring of utter contempt, “I should not be likely to have opened them.”

For it did not occur to her that Helen was speaking of Monsieur D’Arblet’s parcel; that did not in the least convey the idea of letters to her mind; nor had it ever entered into her head to speculate about what that unhappy little packet could possibly contain; she had never even thought about it.

“I have no letters of yours,” she repeated.

“You are saying what is false,” cried Helen, angrily.  “How can you dare to deny it?  You know you have got them, you are here to give them to Maurice, knowing that they will ruin me.  You shall not give them to him.  I have come to take them from you—­I will have them.”

“I do not even know what you are speaking about,” answered Vera.  “Why should I want to ruin you, if, indeed, such a thing is to be done?”

“Because you hate me as much as I hate you.”

“Hate is an ugly word,” said Vera, rather scornfully.  “I have no reason to hate you, and I do not know why you should hate me.”

“Don’t imagine you can put me off with empty words,” cried Helen, wildly.  She made a step forward; her white hands clenched themselves together with a reasonless fury; she was as white as the crescent moon that rose beyond the trees.

“Give me my letters—­the letters you are waiting here to give to my husband!” she cried.