"Not afraid! You are hatefully quiet and impassive, just like—ah, like all your race! Are you always so cold and still? Have you no blood in your veins?"
"If you will sit down," said Lettice steadily, "I will tell you something that you ought to know. It is useless trying to frighten me with your threats. Sit down and rest if you will; I will get you food or coffee, if you care for either. But there is something that I want to say."
Cora stared at her scornfully. "Food! Coffee! Do you think I am starving?" she asked, with a savage little laugh. "I have as much money as I want—more than you are ever likely to have, mademoiselle. You are very naive, mon enfant. You invite me into your room—Lettice Campion invites Cora Walcott into her room!—where nobody knows us, nobody could trace us—and you quietly ask me to eat and drink! Eat and drink in this house? It is so likely! How am I to tell, for example, if your coffee is not poisoned? You would not be very sorry if I were to die! Parbleu, if you want to poison me, you should tempt me with brandy or champagne. Have you neither of those to offer me?"
Lettice had drawn back at the first hint of this insinuation, with a look of irrepressible disgust. She answered coldly, "I have neither brandy nor champagne to give you."
"Allons, donc! Why do I stay here then?" said Cora jumping up from the chair where she had seated herself. "This is very wearisome. Your idea was not very clever, Mademoiselle Lettice; you should lay your plans better if you want to trick a woman like me."
"Why should I wish to trick you?" said Lettice, with grave, quiet scorn. "What object could I have in killing you?"
"Ma foi, what object should you not have? Revenge, of course. Have I not injured you? have I not taken away your good name already? All who know you have heard my story, and many who do not know you; and nearly every one of them believes it to be true. You robbed me of my husband, mademoiselle, you know it; and you have but too good reason to wish me dead, in order that you may take a wife's place at the convict's side."
"You are mad. Listen to me——"
"I will listen to nothing. I will speak now. I will give you a last warning. Do you know what this is?"
She took a bottle from her pocket, a bottle of fluted, dark-colored glass, and held it in her hand.