‘Alive?’ said Calton, turning to the man at the window.
‘I should rather think so,’ said Villiers, insolently, advancing into the room; ‘I don’t look like a dead man, do I?’
Madame Midas sprang forward and caught his wrist.
‘So you have come back, murderer!’ she hissed in his ear.
‘What do you mean?’ said her husband, wrenching his hand away.
‘Mean?’ she cried, vehemently; ‘you know what I mean. You cut yourself off entirely from me by your attempt on my life, and the theft of the gold; you dare not have showed yourself in case you received the reward of your crime; and so you worked in the dark against me. I knew you were near, though I did not see you; and you for a second time attempted my life.’
‘I did not,’ muttered Villiers, shrinking back from the indignant blaze of her eyes. ‘I can prove—’
‘You can prove,’ she burst out, contemptuously, drawing herself up to her full height, ‘Yes! you can prove anything with your cowardly nature and lying tongue; but prove that you were not the man who came in the dead of night and poisoned the drink waiting for me, which was taken by my nurse. You can prove—yes, as God is my judge, you shall prove it, in the prisoner’s dock, e’er you go to the gallows.’
During all this terrible speech, Villiers had crouched on the ground, half terrified, while his wife towered over him, magnificent in her anger. At the end, however, he recovered himself a little, and began to bluster.
‘Every man has a right to a hearing,’ he said, defiantly, looking from his wife to Calton; ‘I can explain everything.’