CHAPTER XII.
THE PRIMA DONNA’S HATE.
Lucia Guiscardini clutched at the iron bar against which she was half-leaning, and glared into the face of her husband, as if she would read his innermost soul.
“What does he know?” she whispered to herself. “How much does he know?”
There was a dead silence for a few seconds. The signs of emotion caused by the name of the friendless wretch who had sought his help were not lost upon Captain Desfrayne.
Madam Guiscardini was trying to rally her forces, and she could not reply in words. Paul Desfrayne repeated his inquiry in another form:
“You do know him?”
The half-terrified woman looked straight into his eyes—those honest eyes, so full of natural kindness and honor.
Fear had blanched her cheeks and lips; shame, perhaps, now drove the roseate hues in a flood back again, as she answered, in a tolerably steady voice:
“I do not. I have never heard of him.”