"It is," and with his back against the door, as if doubly to bar her
egress, Richard regarded her gloomily, while he charged her with the
special reason why she wished to go. "It was to meet Frank Van Buren,
your former lover," he said, asking if she could deny it.
For a moment Ethelyn stood irresolute, mentally going over all that
would be said if she stayed from Mrs. Miller's, where she was to be the
prominent one, and calculating her strength to stem the tide of wonder
and conjecture as to her absence which was sure to follow. She could not
meet it, she decided; she must go, at all hazards, even if, to achieve
her purpose, she made some concessions to the man who had denounced her
so harshly, and used such language as is not easily forgotten.
"Richard," she began, and her eyes had a strange glittering light in
them, "with regard to the past I shall say nothing now, but that Frank
was here in Camden I had not the slightest knowledge till I heard it
from you. Believe me, Richard, and let me go. My absence will seem very
strange, and cause a great deal of remark. Another time I may explain
what would best have been explained before."
The light in her eyes was softer now, and her voice full of entreaty;
for Ethie felt almost as if pleading for her life. But she might as well
have talked to the wall for any good results it produced. Richard was
moved from his lofty height of wrath and vindictiveness, but he did not
believe her. How could he, with the fatal note in his hand, and the
memory of the degrading epithet it contained, and which Ethie, too, had
used against him, still ringing in his ears? The virgin queen of England
was never more stony and inexorable with regard to the unfortunate Mary
than was Richard toward his wife, and the expression of his face froze
all the better emotions rising in Ethie's heart, as she felt that in a
measure she was reaping a just retribution for her long deception.
"I do not believe you, madam," Richard said; "and if I were inclined to
do so, this note, which Harry said was sent to you, and which I found
upon the floor, would tell me better," and tossing into her lap the
soiled bit of paper, accomplishing so much harm, he continued: "There is
my proof; that in conjunction with the name of opprobrium, which you
remember you insinuatingly used, asking if you were pretty enough to
make the old maid, Elizabeth, jealous. You are pretty enough, madam; but
it is an accursed beauty which would attract to itself men of Frank Van
Buren's stamp."