‘Let her go on,’ interposed Lady Amabel Scott, with wide-open, astonished eyes; ‘I am not afraid. I wish to hear of what she accuses me.’
She had risen from her seat as soon as she understood the purport of the widow’s speech, and crossed over to her husband’s side; and knowing what I did of her, I was yet glad to see that Warden Scott threw his arm about her for encouragement and support. She may have been thoughtless and faulty, but she was so young, and he was gone. Besides, no man can stand by calmly and see one woman pitted against another.
‘Of what do you accuse me?’ demanded Lady Amabel, with heightened colour.
‘Of what do I accuse you?’ almost screamed Justina. ‘Of perfidy, of treachery, toward him,’ pointing to Mr Warden Scott, ‘and toward me. I accuse you of attempting to win my dear husband’s affections from me—which you never did, thank God!—and of rendering this home as desolate as it was happy. But you failed—you failed!’
‘Where are your proofs?’ said the other woman, quietly.
‘There!’ exclaimed my niece, as she threw some four or five letters down upon the table—‘there! I brought them for your husband to peruse. He kept them; generous and good as he was, he would have spared you an open exposure, but I have no such feelings in the matter. Are you to go from this house into another to pursue the same course of action, and perhaps with better success? No, not if I can prevent it!’
Her jealousy, rage, and grief seemed to have overpowered her; Justina was almost beside herself. I entreated her to retire, but it was of no avail. ‘Not till Warden Scott tells me what he thinks of his wife writing those letters with a view to seducing the affections of a married man,’ she persisted.
Mr Scott turned the letters over carelessly.
‘They are not from my wife,’ he quietly replied.
‘Do you dare to say so?’ exclaimed Justina to Lady Amabel.