"Certainly not," answered the viscount evasively.
"Ah, what a relief! The house is well rid of them."
"It is, indeed, my love."
"But—but—but—the dead body?" whispered the woman in a husky voice, while her eyes dilated with terror.
"It is gone."
"Where? how?"
"I tied a heavy weight to its feet and sunk it in the depths of the sea," replied the viscount, who felt no scruples in deceiving anyone, least of all his accomplice in crime.
And this shows the utter falsity of the absurd proverb that asserts "there is honor among thieves." There can be no honor and no confidence in any league wherein the bond is guilt.
Lord Vincent was completely under the influence of Mrs. Dugald, whom he worshiped with a fatal passion—a passion the more violent and enduring because she continually stimulated without ever satisfying it. Up to this time she had never once permitted the viscount to kiss her. Thus he was her slave; but, like all slaves, he deceived his tyrant. He had deceived Mrs. Dugald from the first; he habitually deceived her.
In this instance he persuaded her that old Katie died under the influence of the chloroform that she had helped to administer on that fatal night when the old negress had been discovered eavesdropping behind the curtain in Mrs. Dugald's apartments.