A quick shudder ran through Faradeane’s veins, and the blood left his face. In the horror and excitement of the moment he had forgotten—forgotten that this blood-stained wretch, who crawled at his feet and begged like a cur for his life, was the husband of Olivia Vanley! The husband!
He looked up speechless for a moment.
“Great God! I had forgotten!” dropped from his white lips. “You—you fiend!”
“Don’t—don’t!” whined Bartley. “I—I know all you can say; but—but if you’d seen how she drove me! She had no mercy! She drove me till I was mad! Yes, that’s what I am!” he gasped, hoarsely. “I’m mad! Tell them I’m mad! They can’t hang me! They can’t! You said so yourself. Oh, Faradeane, have pity on me! Think how young I am! I—I am no older than you! Have pity on me!”
“Silence!” said Faradeane, and his voice rose like that of a stern, relentless judge. “I am thinking. But not of you! I am thinking of her—of the girl whose life you have wrecked and ruined, whose heart you have broken! Don’t speak!” He held up his hand. “Every word you utter tempts me to call for some one to drag you away. You, the husband of——For your own sake, don’t speak to me.”
Bartley Bradstone crouched on the ground, his hands clutching at the grass, his face hidden.
A minute or two passed, as Faradeane bent over the pallid face upon his knee, his own almost as white, his heart racked by the awful torture of the position. All his thought was of the sweet, innocent, pure-hearted girl, for whom he would have gladly laid down his life, and whom this blood-stained wretch had linked to his own shameful name.
Then, as he looked down upon the woman, scarcely seeing her, he was recalled to the fact of her presence by a slight movement of her eyelids.
They opened. For a moment there was nothing but a dense shadow over them; then she recognized him.
“You!” she breathed, with a faint flicker of surprise in her face.