"Sir, I will speak! They are against me; Maria and this Lydia."
"Ah!" muttered Torry quickly, "I wonder if it is Miss Hargone who is being screened by Donna Maria and Vass." He raised his voice and addressed Mrs. Grent: "Why should they be against you, madam?"
"Lydia for her wickedness; Maria being governed by that evil one. I did not speak at Wray House; I saw you not as they would have told me--'Ah how foolish! Ah! how wrong!' So, sir here I come to tell you that my husband was killed by Lydia Hargone. Smiling traitress!"
"How do you know?" asked Torry sharply.
"I am sure, I swear!" Donna Inez crossed herself rapidly. "By the Holy Mother, I swear!"
"Have you any proof?"
"No; but listen. I will tell. I love my husband, he loves me. We were happy as angels in Paradise till came that evil Lydia. Then she make the eyes, the smiles at my husband. Oh, yes; for why--because she poor, she wish money, much money. My husband, poor fool, he smile on her, he angry with me, yet good wife I was this long time--ah, sir, ten year. This old man, he love her, and I--ah, it so suffocates me to speak it--I am thought not of, I am neglected. Yes, yes, it is true. I--I--I--Inez Sandoval, was left for her--perfiding one," and in her rage Mrs. Grent shook her two fists in the air.
"Why did you not turn her out of the house?" asked Torry.
"I? Who am I?" replied Donna Inez with a bitter laugh. "No one--a wife not loved. I rage, I speak, I implore for her to go; but no, no, no. My husband he say: 'Stay! stay!' and the accursed one stops. Then I say: You go, or I depart for Peru. Ah!'"
"So Miss Hargone left Wray House?" said Torry, seeing that Donna Inez was too overcome by passion to speak further.