“This is my wife, Mr. Buford,” said Dominick, who had been staring from one to the other in blank astonishment. “We’ve been married nearly three years. I don’t understand——”
“It’s Bernice Iverson, the girl I married in Chicago, that I’ve just been telling you about, that I saw last night at the Mexican restaurant. Why, she can’t deny it. She can’t look at me and say she doesn’t know me—Junius Carter, the man she married in the Methodist chapel, seven years ago, in Chicago. Bernice——”
He approached her and she shrank back.
“Keep away from me,” she cried hoarsely, stretching out a trembling hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy. Junius Carter’s dead—” then suddenly turning on Dominick with a blazing look of fury—“It’s you that have done this! It’s you, you snake! I’ll be even with you yet!”
She tore herself out of the folds of the portière which she had clutched to her and rushed into the hall and into her own room. The banging of the door behind her shook the house.
The two men stood as she had left them, staring at each other, not knowing what to say, speechless and aghast.
“Mr. Ryan,” the actor cried, “this is my wife” Page [463]
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LAST INTERVIEW
The night was falling when Buford left. He and Dominick had sat on in the den, talking together in low voices, going over past events in the concatenation of circumstances that had led up to the extraordinary situation in which they now found themselves. Both listened with strained ears for the opening of Bernice’s door, but not a sound came from her room. Each silently, without expressing his thoughts to the other, wondered what she would do, what sensational move might now be expected of her. While they talked, it was evident she intended to make no sign of life.