What was there in it to drive all the color from her cheeks?
She snatched up and scrutinized a second card, a third, a fourth; then, springing to her feet, she seized the whole mass, hurled them into the fire, and turned, and confronted her husband.
Her teeth were clenched upon her bloodless lips, her face seemed marble, her eyes lambent flames.
He rose to his feet in surprise and dismay.
“Sybil! what is all this? Why have you destroyed the cards?”
“Why?” she gasped, pressing both hands upon her heart, as if to keep down its horrible throbbings. “Why? Because they are lies! lies! lies!”
“Sybil! have you gone suddenly mad?” he cried, gazing at the “embodied storm” before him with increasing astonishment and consternation.
“No! I have suddenly come to my senses!” she gasped between the catches of her breath, for she could scarcely speak.
“You must calm yourself, and tell me what this means, my wife,” said Lyon Berners, exerting a great control over himself, and pushing aside the last card he had written.
But she snatched up that card, glanced at it fiercely, tore it in two, and threw the fragments far apart, exclaiming in bitter triumph: