The moment the words were spoken she repented their utterance, but the mischief was already done.
"Mrs. Trevlyn, I shall request you to unsay the insinuation conveyed in your words. They are unworthy of you and a shame to me."
"And I shall decline to unsay them. I dare affirm they are true enough."
"What do you mean, madam? I am, I trust, a man of honor. You are my wife, and I am true to you. I have never loved but one woman, and she is dead to me."
The allusion to the old love was extremely unfortunate just at this time, for Mrs. Trevlyn was just sore enough to be deeply wounded by it, and angry enough to throw back taunt for taunt.
"A man of honor!" she ejaculated, scornfully. "Honor, forsooth! Archer Trevlyn, do you call yourself that?"
"I do; and I defy any man living to prove the contrary!" answered Archer, proudly.
"You defy any man! Do you, also, defy any woman? Tell me, if you can, whose glove this is?" And she pulled from her bosom the blood-stained glove, and held it up before him.
He looked at it, flushed crimson, and trembled perceptibly. She laughed scornfully.
"Archer Trevlyn, your guilt is known to me! It has been known to me ever since the fatal night on which Paul Linmere met his death. I was there that night, by the lonely graveyard. I saw you kiss her hand! I heard the dreadful blow, listened to the smothered groan, and saw through the gloom the guilty murderer as he fled from the scene of crime! When the victim was discovered, I went first, because I feared he might have left behind him something that might fix his identity—and so he had. This glove I found lying upon the ground, by the side of the wretched victim—marked with the name of the murderer—stained with the blood of the murdered! I hid it away; I would have died sooner than it should have been torn from me, because I was foolish enough to love this man, whose hand was red with murder! Archer Trevlyn, you took the life of Paul Linmere, and thus removed the last obstacle that stood between you and Margaret Harrison!"