"By Satan!" cried the Resurrection Man, stamping his foot with impatience; "this is too much! Do you pretend that it was not Lydia Hutchinson whom you hired me to throttle in your own chamber?"
"Monster!" screamed Adeline, starting from her seat, and speaking in her proper tone, being now completely thrown off her guard: "of what would you accuse me?"
And her countenance, which expressed all the worst and most furious passions of her soul, contrasted strangely with her garb of widowhood.
"Of nothing more than I accuse myself," answered the Resurrection Man, brutally. "But if you want any other proof of what I say, come along with me, and I'll show you the very pond in which the body of Lydia Hutchinson is rotting. Ah! I found out that too, during my rambles yesterday!"
Adeline's cheeks were flushed with rage when he began to answer her last question; but as he went on, all the colour forsook them; and, pale—pale as a corpse, she fell back again upon the sofa.
"There! I knew I should bring it home to you," said the Resurrection Man, coolly surveying the condition to which he had reduced the guilty woman. "But don't be frightened—I'm not going to blab, for my own sake. I haven't even told your brother-in-law about this business. Tony Tidkins never betrays his employers."
Lady Ravensworth cast a rapid glance at his countenance as he uttered these words; and catching at the assurance which they conveyed, she said in a low and hollow tone, "You have not really acquainted Mr. Vernon with all this?"
"Not a syllable of it!" cried Tidkins. "Why should I? he wouldn't pay me the more for betraying you!"
"Then how came you here during my interview with him?" demanded Adeline, almost suffocated by painful emotions. "Was he not privy to your presence?"
"He was, my lady," answered Tidkins, in a less familiar tone than before: "but, for all that, he doesn't know what business I had with your ladyship."