As I turned and saw Maxwell standing with his back against the door, and an insolent smile on his face, suspicion entered my mind. It was to some extent confirmed when I observed the insolent smile reflected on the face of my stepmother.
"Barbara is still alive, dear brother-in-law," said Maxwell, laughing quietly to himself. "You are in time, you see. Oh, yes, you are in time."
I threw open the door of the adjoining room. A strange woman was there, standing by a chair in which Barbara was lolling. Except that she had grown more unwieldy, that her eyes were bleared and dim, and that her driveling mouth and hanging jaws gave her the appearance of a besotted hag, she bore no traces of a mortal illness such as Maxwell had described. The truth rushed upon me with convincing force. I had been tricked.
"Neat, wasn't it?" exclaimed Maxwell, as I closed the door upon the disgusting sight. "Would you believe," addressing my stepmother, "that our dear John was actually calculating the time when he would be free to marry the low woman for whom he deserted his lawful wife?"
"I would believe anything of him," said my stepmother.
"I warn you," I said. "Another such allusion, and I will thrash you within an inch of your life."
"Oh! I'm not to be frightened by threats," he blustered, "and I'm not going to quarrel with you."
"You will gain nothing by the trick you have played me," I said. "I am already making your sister an allowance which my means do not warrant, and which no court of law would compel me to pay."
"A pretense of poverty for which we are prepared. And we are prepared also to make your affairs public property unless you listen to reason."
"You are in the plot against me," I said to my stepmother.