Rylton lifts his head.

“To what woman are you alluding?” asks he shortly, icily.

“To Tita,” returns she boldly.  “I knew where she was that night; I knew she would be with her cousin at that moment—­the cousin she had known and loved all her life.  The cousin she had cast aside, for the moment, to take your title, and mount by it to a higher rank in life.”  She takes a step towards him, her large eyes blazing. "Now you know the truth,” says she, with a vehemence that shakes her.  “Your love may be dead to me, but you shall know her as she is!  Faithless!  False as hell she is! She shall not supplant me!”

She stands back from him, her hands outstretched and clenched.  She looks almost superb in her wicked wrath.

Rylton regards her steadily.

“You are tired,” says he coldly.  “You ought to get some rest.  You will sleep here to-night?”

There is a question in his tone.

“Why not?  In this my old home—­my home for years—­your mother’s home.”

“My mother is in Scotland,” says he briefly.

Something is tearing at his breast.  Her deliberate, her most cruel attack on Tita has touched him to the quick.

“Don’t be frightened!” says Mrs. Bethune, bursting out laughing.  “What are you thinking of—­your reputation?”

“No!”

Manlike, he refrains from the obvious return.  But she, in her mad frenzy of despair and anger, supplies it.

“Mine, then?  It is not worth a thought, eh?  Who cares for me?  Whether I sink with the vile, or swim with the good?  No!  I’ll tell you what you are thinking of, Maurice.”  She lays her hand upon her throat quickly, as if stifling, yet laughs gaily.  “You are thinking that that little idiot may hear of my being here, and that she will make a fuss about it—­all underbred people love a fuss—­and that——­”

She would have gone on, but Rylton has given up his neutral position on the hearthrug—­he has made one step forward, his face dark with passion.

“Not another word!” says he in a sharp, imperious tone.  “Not another word about—­MY WIFE!”

The last two words explain all.  Mrs. Bethune stand still, as if struck to the heart.

For a full minute she so stands, and then—­“You are right.  I should not be here,” says she.  She turns, and rests her eyes steadily on him.  “So that is my fault,” says she, “that you love—­her!"

Shame holds him silent.

“You do love her?” persists she, playing with her misery, insisting on it.  She lays her hand upon her heart as if to stay its beating.  Is it going to burst its bonds?  Oh, if it only might, and at this moment!  To think that she—­that girl—­should take her place!  And yet, had she not known?  All through, had she not known?  She had felt a superstitious fear about her, and now—­“You do not speak?” says she.  “Is it that you cannot?  God knows I do not wonder!  Well,” slowly, “good-night! good-bye!”