“Will you be silent, girl?” cried the Contessa hastily.
“No; I must speak now. You would not have listened to me so long had I not spoken truth. You love him—you dare not deny it. Well, I love him too, and I tell you that your love came like a blight upon his life.”
“Woman, will you—”
“No; I will not be silent,” said Cornel firmly: “but even if I ceased to speak, my words would ring in your ears. It is not love that holds him to you, or you to him, but a blind mad passion, the destroyer of you both. Call it love if you will, but prove that love by giving him up to return to his old, peaceful life.”
“And your arms?” whispered the Contessa maliciously.
“Ah! The proof!” cried Cornel. “No one but a spiteful rival could have spoken that. But your love is not as mine. I will not ask you to give him back to me, but to set him free before some horror descends upon you both. Your husband—”
“Hush!”
Valentina gave a quick look round, and Cornel flushed in her eagerness as she exclaimed—
“The shadow over both your lives! You know it. Now, madam, prove your love by freeing him from such a risk. How can you call it love that threatens him with danger and disgrace!”
“And if I tell you that you, a foolish, jealous girl, are conjuring up all this in your excited brain—that I have listened to you patiently—and that I will hear no more?”