"There is one other consideration, then," said Lydia, still completely unruffled: "and perhaps the ingenuity of your ladyship will devise a means of frustrating that test also."
"To what do you allude?" demanded Adeline.
"I mean that when you summon your domestics to drag me to a gaol on a charge of extortion," replied Lydia, contemptuously, "that moment do I proclaim the history of the past! Then will medical experience speedily prove whether Lady Ravensworth now bears her first child in her bosom!"
Adeline uttered a faint shriek, and fell back upon the sofa, overwhelmed by this dread menace.
That shriek was accompanied by a low moan that seemed to come from the passage outside.
Lydia hastened towards the door; but ere she had half crossed the room, it was thrown violently open, and Lord Ravensworth entered the boudoir.
"My husband!" screamed Adeline, in a frantic tone: then, flinging herself on her knees before him, she cried, "Mercy! mercy!"
CHAPTER CCVII.
THE HUSBAND, THE WIFE, AND THE UNFORTUNATE
WOMAN.
"Mercy! mercy!" were the words that burst from the lips of the affrighted lady, ere she paused to reflect whether the preceding conversation had been overheard or not.
"Rise," said Lord Ravensworth, his quivering lip, flashing eye, hectic cheek, heaving chest, and clenched hand denoting a more powerful excitement than he had experienced for a long, long time. "Rise, madam: this is a subject which cannot be disposed of in passionate ejaculations;—it requires a calmer deliberation—for the honour of two noble families is now at stake!"