Not so he. He uttered a scream of dismay, and staggered, white as a ghost, but still glared at Ina Klosking.
Zoe's voice fell on him like a clap of thunder: “What!—Edward!—Mr. Severne!—Has this lady still any right—”
“No, none whatever!” he cried; “it is all past and gone.”
“What is past?” said Ina Klosking, grandly. “Are you out of your senses?”
Then she was close to him in a moment, by one grand movement, and took him by both lapels of his coat, and held him firmly. “Speak before this lady,” she cried. “Have—I—no—rights—over you?” and her voice was majestic, and her Danish eyes gleamed lightning.
The wretch's knees gave way a moment and he shook in her hands. Then, suddenly, he turned wild. “Fiend! you have ruined me!” he yelled; and then, with his natural strength, which was great, and the superhuman power of mad excitement, he whirled her right round and flung her from him, and dashed out of the door, uttering cries of rage and despair.
The unfortunate lady, thus taken by surprise, fell heavily, and, by cruel ill luck, struck her temple, in falling, against the sharp corner of a marble table. It gashed her forehead fearfully, and she lay senseless, with the blood spurting in jets from her white temple.
Zoe screamed violently, and the hall and the hall staircase seemed to fill by magic.
In the terror and confusion, Harrington Vizard strode into the hall, from Taddington. “What is the matter?” he cried. “A woman killed?”
Some one cried out she had fallen.