"Then despair must be your lot," said Lydia, fixing her eyes with malignant joy upon her mistress: "for—as sure as you are called Lady Ravensworth—Lord Dunstable and Colonel Cholmondeley are inmates of this mansion!"
"May God have mercy upon me!" murmured Adeline, in a low but solemn tone.
And she sank almost insensible upon the sofa.
"Yes," continued the unrelenting Lydia, "he to whom you gave your honour, as one child might give a toy of little value to another—and he who stole my honour as a vile thief plunders the defenceless traveller upon the highway,—those two men are beneath this roof! The villain who ruined me and slew my brother, is now lying upon a bed from which he may never more be removed save to the coffin. His second was the gay seducer who rioted awhile upon your charms, and then threw you aside,—yes, you—the daughter of one of England's proudest peers—as he would a flower that had garnished his button-hole for an hour, and then failed to please any longer. These two men are beneath your roof!"
"Oh! if my errors have been great, surely—surely my punishment is more than commensurate!" murmured Adeline, in the bitterness of her heart.
"Your punishment seems only to have just begun," retorted Lydia, ever ready to plunge a fresh dagger into the soul of the unhappy lady.
"My God! you speak but too truly!" ejaculated Adeline, clasping her hands together. "Oh! that I could pass the latter half of my life over again—oh! that I could recall the years that have fled!"
"The years that have fled have prepared a terrible doom for those that are to come," said Lydia. "But hasten, my lady,—this time I will aid you to change your dress," she added sneeringly; "for I long to see your meeting with Colonel Cholmondeley."
"See our meeting!—you!" cried Lady Ravensworth, springing from the sofa in alarm.
"Yes—I shall contrive that pleasure for myself," observed Lydia, calmly.