“I know it,” she said, coldly. “Please do not allude to that—again.”
“What is to be done with this, then?” he asked, chilled by her unwomanliness. And he picked up the locket and once more looked at the pretty, defiant little face pictured therein.
“I do not see what one thing has to do with the other,” she said.
“I feel certain that this is the portrait of your mother,” he said. “And, that being so, what is to be done with it?”
She glanced at him with a curious light in her grey eyes that made her look more witchlike than angelic.
“I will show you,” she said; and going to the hearth she stirred the logs into a blaze, and detaching the locket from its slender chain she dropped it into the glowing heart of the fire.
“I will keep this,” she said, showing him the chain. “It touched his neck. You are answered.”
The horrified expression on Hugh’s pale features somewhat quieted her passion. He was surprised and shocked. Was her rage pure jealousy, or what? He stood there, pondering, with his face averted from her.
“Now you know me!” she said, recklessly. “No—not quite. But I will tell you. I hate the woman who dared to marry my father without loving him, and so, poisoned his life and broke his heart!”
Somehow Sir Roderick as Hugh had known him was scarcely to be recognised as a man with a poisoned life and a broken heart.