“I like your candor,” Margaret laughed, a little bitterly, “but it is a poor return for my efforts to warn you against the shipwreck of this love of yours. You profess to love my cousin, but it is a selfish love. It is this which makes me doubt you.”
“You speak in riddles, Miss Nugent,” Theresa said, angrily. “I would willingly lay down my life for my husband. My love is richer than pearls or rubies. For his sake I would willingly walk barefooted through life. I would even renounce my hopes of heaven!”
“It sounds very nice, truly,” was the sneering rejoinder; “and yet because of you he carries his life in his hand. Do you wonder that I do not fall into raptures over such a sacrifice? Blood is thicker than water, Lady Annesley. You affect not to understand me, when you must well know that you and yours for all time are the victims of a secret vendetta. Your countrymen know how to hate and to stab in the dark. Your father stole another man’s bride, and the shadow of the knife for this act killed your mother. In fear Mr. Hamilton buried himself in the country to escape the fate that was sure to follow sooner or later. The executive of the vendetta visited him the night he died!”
“No—no!” gasped Theresa, terrified beyond mere words.
“Why will you seek to deceive yourself?” continued Miss Nugent, vindictively. “You know that it is true—you also know that Sir Harold, as your husband, is a marked man. He may be stabbed to death at any moment. Do you think that I, his cousin, can love you, knowing the ban that his alliance with you has placed upon him? We English do not understand these things. It is revolting.”
Lady Annesley was lying back, deathly white. It seemed that all the beauty of the early September morning had suddenly been enveloped by a black ball.
“Is this true?” she whispered, hoarsely. “Yes, my heart tells me that it is true!”
“Do you mean to say that it is news to you?” demanded Margaret, with well-assumed astonishment. “Oh, Theresa, if it is so, you must not tell Sir Harold, or he will never forgive me. Promise that you will not tell him!”
“Swear that you have not lied to me, and I promise,” Theresa said.
“Before Heaven, every word is truth, and I could cut out my tongue for having spoken it. Sir Harold himself destroyed the written warning from the executive which threatened his own life. Oh, Lady Annesley, I shall never forgive myself for what I have done!”