"Two gentlemen!" he repeated; "two gentlemen! So, this is a trap! Who are the two gentlemen, pray?" and as he spoke he drew his sword. "If, as I suspect, they are the two bullies--your lover, whom you meet at masquerades, whom you give assignations to, and his friend--they shall at least find that I can defend myself."
In truth, bold as he seemed, he was now in great fear. He expected nothing else but that, when the door again opened, Sholto and Elphinston would appear before him, and he began to quake and to think his last hour was come. His treachery was, he feared, soon to be repaid.
She made no answer to his vile taunt about her lover, nor did she take any heed of the drawn sword that shook in his hand; had she been a statue she could not have stood more still as she regarded him with contempt and scorn.
Then the door did open, and Sir Charles Ames and Douglas Sholto entered the room. The first he did not know; had, indeed, never seen him before; but at the sight of the other he grasped his weapon more firmly, expecting that ere another moment had passed the hands of the young Highlander would be at his throat, and that he would have to defend his life against him. To his intense surprise Sholto treated him with as much indifference as if he too had been a statue; after one glance--which, if disdain could have the power to slay, would have withered him as he stood--he took no further heed of him. As for Sir Charles Ames, he, observing the drawn weapon in the other's hand, smiled contemptuously, shrugged his shoulders, and then took his place behind Lady Fordingbridge and by the side of Douglas.
"Sir Charles and you, Douglas," she said, "forgive me for asking you to be present at this interview, yet I do so because I desire that in after days there shall be one or two men, at least, to testify to that which I now do." Then, turning towards her husband, who still stood where he had risen on her entrance, she said:
"Simeon Larpent, since first I met you--to my eternal unhappiness--your life has been one long lie, one base deceit. The first proposals ever made to me by you were degrading to an honest woman, were infamy to listen to. Next, you obtained me for your wife by more lies, by more duplicity, by more deceit. Also, from the time I have been your wife, you, yourself a follower of the unhappy house of Stuart by birth and bringing up, have endeavoured in every way to encompass the death of three followers of the same cause, because one of those men was to have been my husband had not you foully wronged him to me; because the other two were his and my friends."
She paused a moment as though to gather fresh energy for her denunciation of him; and he, craven as he was, stood there before her, white to the very lips, and with his eyes wandering from one to the other of the two listeners. Then she continued:
"For all this, Simeon Larpent, but especially for that which you have last done, for this your last piece of cruel, wicked treachery, for this your last bitter, tigerish endeavour to destroy three men who had otherwise been safe, I renounce and deny you for ever."
All started as she uttered these words, but without heeding them she continued:
"For ever. I disavow you, I forswear you as my husband. I have long ceased to be aught to you but a wife in name; henceforth I will not be so much as that. I have quitted your house. I quit now and part with for so long as I shall live your name, the share in the rank that you smirch and befoul. From to-day I will never willingly set eyes on you again, never speak one word to you, though you lay dying at my feet, never answer to the name of Fordingbridge. I return to what I was; I become once more Katherine Fane."