Lionel was at his wit's end. "Then you cannot be cured?"
"No;" she looked at him steadily, an awful smile curving the corners of her mouth. "I thought you would fail me at the last."
"But how can I----?"
"You can't, so there's no more to be said." She sat down with a little sigh. "Dear me, how very hot this room is! Would you mind opening the window?"
Kaimes did not move. "Leah, go to bed, and let me send for one of those doctors you consulted."
"Useless! useless!" She waved him aside calmly. "They have spoken. I know the worst; I am prepared to face the worst. Are you? Hold your tongue," she added peremptorily, as he opened his mouth. "Listen!"
From beginning to end did she relate the whole fraud--the sham death, the stolen money, the betrayal, and the punishment of the kiss. Her voice was perfectly calm, her posture easy, and her self-control admirable. The listener grew white and red, became nervous and angry, quivered with disgust, recoiled with loathing, as she unfolded the brutal tale of her sin and treachery. Leah spared him no detail, however painful; she even made herself out to be worse than she really was--if that were possible. From the buying of Demetrius by that butterfly kiss in the picture-gallery, to the revenge of Demetrius in that stuffy cabin, when she struggled in the arms of one who had been what she now was, she related the whole without a blush, without a tremor, in a quiet, level voice, unmoved, and utterly shameless. The horror of her position seemed to remove her from the region of human emotions and morals. It was the unveiling of original evil.
Lionel did not interrupt, but closed his eyes with a sick feeling as she drew to the end.
"I first noticed that something was wrong when my hands burned as I washed them. I thought nothing of it at the time; but the feeling became so painful that I saw my doctor. He said--well, you can guess what he said. I consulted another, and another: the same diagnosis. I went abroad, but the doctors in Germany and France told me the same thing. I knew it was true. I felt in my heart it was true. Ugh!" She paused. "There is no cure--none, none." Then she finished, with a nervous titter, "Pleasant for me, isn't it?"
"Don't!" gasped the vicar, leaning his head on his hand, and much too qualmish to speak.