I am so taken aback I can find no reply to make to this speech: every moment renders me more amazed, more thoroughly frightened.
"You are Mrs. Carrington of Strangemore," she goes on, in the purest English, but with an unmistakably foreign accent. "Well, Mrs. Carrington, I have come here to-day to tell you something I fear will be unpalatable to your dainty ears."
At this instant it occurs to me that I have admitted to my presence, and am shut up with, an escaped lunatic. At this thought my blood curdles in my veins; I move a step backwards, and cast a lingering, longing glance at the bell handle. Watching my every gesture, she immediately divines my intention.
"If you will take my advice," she says, "you will not touch that bell. What I have to say might furnish too much gossip for your servant's hall. No, I am not mad. Pouf! what a fool it is, trembling in every limb! Pray restrain yourself Mrs. Carrington: you will require all your courage to sustain you by and by."
She is speaking very insolently, and there is a fiendish triumph in her black eyes; I can hear a subtle mockery in her tone as she utters my married name.
"If you will be so kind as to state your business without any further delay," I remark, with as much hauteur as I can summon to my aid, "I shall feel obliged."
"Good," says she, with a vicious smile: "you recover. The white mouse has found its squeak. Listen, then." She seats herself before the small table that divides us, leans her elbows upon it, and takes her face between her hands. Her eyes are still riveted upon mine; not for a second does she relax the vigilance of her gaze. "Who do you think I am?" she asks, slowly.
"I have not the faintest idea," I reply, still haughty, though thoroughly upset, and nervous.
"I—am—Marmaduke—Carrington's—lawful—wife," she says, biting out the words with cruel emphasis, and nodding her head at me between each pause.
I neither stagger nor faint, nor cry out: I simply don't believe her. She is mad, then, after all. Oh, if Tynon, or Harris, or any one, would only come! I calculate my chance of being able to rush past her and gain the door in safety, but am disheartened by her watchfulness. I remember, too, how fatal a thing it is to show symptoms of terror before a maniac, and with an effort collect myself.