"You have kept me waiting, Julius."
Mrs. Stuart spoke impatiently. She had been waiting some time at the end
of the myrtle avenue among its deepest shadows and her temper was not
sweetened by the delay.
"I beg your pardon," Mr. Revington replied, "I was smoking a cigar with
your husband and could not come any sooner."
He paused a moment, and then added in a rather complaining tone:
"I could not imagine what you wanted of me, anyhow."
"Could you not?" she inquired, with a smothered sneer. "Well, sit down
here on this quiet seat and I will tell you."
They seated themselves and began talking softly, unconscious that in the
long grass just beyond the thick belt of shrubbery that inclosed the
myrtle avenue, a man had flung himself down full length, so absorbed in
his own painful thoughts as to be for the moment unaware of their
presence.
Suddenly he became aware of the murmuring sound of voices. His first
impulse was to rise and leave the spot, but in the next he decided that
it would startle the speakers and draw down their ill-will perhaps upon
himself.
"Some of the servants out sparking," he laughed to himself. "I will not
disturb them. They will be none the worse for my presence."
So he laid his head down again upon his arm, and relapsed into his
painful musing.
"I will tell you what I have to say to you, Julius," repeated Mrs.
Stuart. "I wish to ask you who is this girl, Irene?"
Julius Revington gave a violent start in the darkness.
"My dear madame, how should I know?" he exclaimed.
"She has promised to be your wife, and it is very likely that she has
confided the story of her past to you," replied Mrs. Stuart.
"You are mistaken in the supposition. She has steadily declined any such
confidence. I have taken her upon her own merits, mystery and all," he
replied.
There was a moment's pause. Their faces were in shadow, and Mrs. Stuart
devoutly wished that she could pierce the veil of the darkness, and read
upon his weak face whether or not he was deliberately trying to deceive
her.
"Perhaps you have formed some opinion of your own," she said.
"I have had no clew upon which to base an opinion," he replied.
"Have you ever seen the pictures in her locket?" she inquired.
Taken by surprise, he stammered faintly: "Ye-es, once, by the merest
accident."
"You recognized them?" she asked, coldly.
"How should I?" he asked, startled.
"Why should you not?" she mimicked. "Julius, do not try to beat about
the bush with me. I am in desperate earnest. I will not be put off by
lies and evasions! You have seen Elaine Brooke's portrait; therefore you
must have recognized the face in Irene's locket as hers."
"And if I did?" he asked, sullenly.
"You must have guessed at the girl's name. You could not have helped it.
It is written on her face. You know whom she is, but you are trying to
deceive me. You know that you are," she said, passionately.
He saw that he had to deal with a passionate, jealous woman, and that
his game was all up, so far as concealment of his plans was concerned.
"I shall be forced to admit what I cannot deny," he told himself,
grimly.
Aloud, he asked, in a tone of forced suavity: "Whom do you say that the
girl is, Mrs. Stuart?"
She bent toward him and answered in a hissing whisper of anger and hate:
"She is the daughter of Clarence Stuart and his first wife, Elaine
Brooke."
A cry of dismay and surprise came from his lips.
"You dare not deny it," she hissed.
"I do not intend to. It is quite true," he replied, doggedly.
"I knew it! How I hate her!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, vindictively. "Would
to God she had perished in the sea that day! From the very first I hated
her even before I dreamed of her identity!"
And for a few moments the air was filled with the sharp ravings of her
anger and bitter hatred.
"How have you learned so much?" inquired Julius Revington, curiously,
for he had fancied that the mystery surrounding Irene was impenetrable
to all but himself.
"No matter. I am not blind to anything around me. I carry too terrible a
secret in my breast to run the risk of its detection. I must guard it at
every point," she replied. "Can you guess what question I am about to
ask you, Julius Revington? You cannot? It is this, then, and mind that
you answer me truly. Do you intend to turn traitor?"