"Scoundrel!" Mrs. Smithers ejaculated on the same note of confirmed conviction.
Sigrid stood looking down at the bowed, shaking shoulders. Her eyes were pitying, but her mouth was a little wry, almost whimsical.
"You were quite right to tell us," she said. "It's made a great many things clear. You needn't be frightened. I have an idea your husband meant you to come and that he will be glad. I daresay that was why he didn't write——"
Mrs. Barclay lifted her head, brushing the tears from her wet cheeks. Her hat had slipped a little to one side, giving her a look of grotesque and distraught violence.
"What are you doing here?" she asked insolently. "Who are you?"
"Nobody in particular—an interloper—it seems."
"Oh, I know better than that!" The dark face quivered into a sneer. "I know who you are. You're the white woman he was after. I guessed right enough. He wanted an Englishwoman." She sprang suddenly to her feet with an almost threatening gesture. "But it was me he loved—me he married. He didn't care for you—don't you flatter yourself—he wanted you—just to get even—just to hurt as he'd been hurt. You're nothing but a——"
She broke off. Sigrid had not moved or spoken, but there was that in the still white face which checked the torrent of savage insult. Mrs. Smithers got up. She rolled the mittens into a neat ball.
"I'm an old woman," she said, "and I hate violence. But just you mind what you're saying, Mrs. Barclay——"
Sigrid checked her with a gesture.