George was no laggard lover; within the hour he rang the familiar bell. Then the nervous restlessness which had taken possession of Gladys seemed to be quietened down, and she stood quite still on the hearth-rug, and her face was calm, but deadly pale.
'Shall we go before George comes up?' asked Mrs. Fordyce, involuntarily rising; but Gladys made answer, with a shade of imperious command,—
'No, I wish you to remain. Mina can go, if she likes.'
Mina had not the opportunity. A quick, eager footstep came hurrying up-stairs, and the door was thrown open with a careless hand.
'You here, Gladys?' he exclaimed, with all the eagerness and delight he might have been expected to display, but next moment the light died out of his face, and he knew that the bolt had fallen. Even those who blamed him most must have commiserated the man upon whom fell that lightning glance of unutterable loathing and contempt.
'I have sent for you to come here, because it was here I saw you first,' she said, and her voice rang out clear and sweet as a bell. 'You know why I have sent for you?—to give you back these things, the sign of a bond which ought never to have been between us. How dared you—how dared you offer them to me, after your monstrous cruelty to that poor girl from whose death-bed I have just come?'
She threw the rings down upon the table; they rolled to the floor, sparkling as if in mockery as they went, but none offered to touch them.
Mina opened the door hurriedly, and left the room. Mrs. Fordyce turned away also, and a sob broke from her lips.
Gladys stood quite erect, the linen at her stately throat not whiter than her face, her clear eyes, brilliant with indignation, fixed mercilessly on her lover's changing face. He was, indeed, a creature to be pitied even more than despised.
'Gladys, for God's sake, don't be too hasty! Give me opportunity for explanation. I admit that I did wrong, but there are extenuating circumstances. Let me explain, I entreat you, before you thus blight my life, and your own.'