Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shivered now under the unsparing gaze. If only this woman would turn her eyes away from her, she thought, in the midst of her fear and amazement--the eyes that pierced her, that suffocated her, like the gripe of a fierce hand upon her throat. She did not know his plan. No; but who could look at her and doubt that, if she chose to know it, she could force the information from her hearer? Who could listen to her cold even tones, and dream of resisting their implacable power?
"Whatever his plan may be," Harriet continued, "he is entirely absorbed in it, and he is indifferent to all beside. Mind, I don't say you count for nothing in this: you are too vain to believe, I am too wise to say, anything of the kind. But your beauty, which he likes, would never have tempted him to an insane disregard of his safety, would never have kept him here when the merest prudence should have driven him far away. He wants you, but he wants your money more urgently and desperately. He needs time to win you and it, no matter how he means to do it, and time is what he has not to give, time is the one stake it is ruin to him to risk in this game. Do you hear me? Do you understand me?"
The blank white face feebly looked a negative.
"No. Then I will put it more plainly. My husband, your lover, the man who is trying to ruin you in reputation, that he may have the power to ruin you in fortune, is in imminent danger. Flight, and flight alone, could save him; but he refuses to fly, because he will not leave you."
"What--what has he done?"
"He has been concerned in a robbery," said Harriet with perfect composure, "and I know the police are on the right track, and will soon come up with him. But he is desperate, and refuses to go. I did not know why until yesterday, when I found you had followed him from Homburg--by arrangement, of course. Tush, woman! don't try to deny it. What does it matter to me? A lie more or less, a villany more or less, makes no difference in him for me; but I knew then why he was obstinately bent on waiting for his fate."
"I--I don't believe you," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge; and she half rose from her chair, and stretched her hand towards the bell. But Harriet stopped her by the lifting of a finger.
"O yes, you do," she said; "you believe me implicitly. You have been afraid of this man--even when he has flattered you, and won upon you most; you have never felt sure of him, and you know I am telling you the truth. But you are weak, and you would like to think you had not been quite so egregiously deceived. I cannot, for his sake, leave you this comfort. You lost a locket at Homburg--a golden egg-shaped toy--with two portraits in it, one of yourself, the other of a young man, a countryman of yours, an admirer. You prized the thing, you showed it to my husband, you talked of its value--is this true?"
"Yes, yes, it is true--what then?"
"This then: he stole that locket from you, as he sat by you, in your carriage, and talked sentiment and compliment to you. He stole the locket--it does not sound nice or heroic; he stole it, I tell you."