“Lady Caroline! This is unthinkable! To come here in that dress—here, to this house, is sheer madness! I did not imagine you capable of such folly.”
“You think I am weak and selfish,” she pleaded. “You have always thought I did not struggle to withstand my feelings. But indeed, indeed, it is more than human nature can bear! I loved you before you married Bella—loved you better than name, than religion, than any prospects on earth! You must have loved me more if you had never seen her! She has never cared for you as I do.”
He darted a glance at the door. His wife! A rebellious anger rose in him at being thrust into such a predicament.
“You have taken a strange way to show that love.”
“Oh, I could show it other ways!” She was looking at him with tremulous daring. “They used to say that once in the East, to prove to a Greek girl that you loved her, you wounded yourself in the breast. Would such a thing make you believe how I love you?”
At that moment both heard a voice in the hallway.
“Bella!” he said in a whisper.
“Oh, I thought she had gone to Seaham,” she breathed. “You must believe I did not know she was here!” She buttoned the coat over her breast with nervous fingers and put on the cloth cap. The sound had thrown her into a paroxysm of dread.
“Quick, quick!” she urged.
“Not that way. Here, to the garden entrance!” He caught her hand, drew her sharply toward the rear door and opened it.