"It was not surprising. Anne always sang and danced arrayed in some fantastic costume, sometimes as Arlequina with a vizard, another time as a Turkish dancing girl, and, as often as not, as a shepherdess with white wig and patches. And he persuaded the poor child, poor little Kate, to say nothing to her more worldly sister, nor ever to let them come into contact."
"It is a deadly vengeance, as deadly to her as to him. Yet, I vow, he at least deserves to suffer from it. But how could she ever think of, how devise, it?"
For a moment Ariadne paused; so that it seemed to him that there was something which she had not told even now. It appeared that she had not divulged all of the plot. For Ariadne whispered now, or almost whispered, "She had a helpmate, a confederate. A man----"
"A man!" Geoffrey exclaimed. "A man! Surely not young Lord John Dallas--he who arrived at the end of the marriage--when it was too late! He who exposed her?"
"Nay; instead, one whom he has deeply injured and wronged almost as much as he wronged and ruined her sister. Whose life he blasted----"
"Ariadne! who is he?"
"The man who pretends to serve him as his creature, his hireling. He who stood by his side at the marriage; his best man."
"Great God! what duplicity, what vengeance! How has Bufton wronged any man so much that the other should do this thing? Forgive me, Ariadne, I would not say aught to wound you, nor aught against your sex, but--but--such vengeance is a woman's, not a man's."
"Yet I do think the scheme was more his than hers. Oh, Geoffrey!" she cried, suddenly, "I am terrified; terrified at what has happened, and doubly terrified at what will, I fear, happen yet. Oh! why, why, did I let it continue? Yet Geoffrey, upon my honour as a woman, I did not know all; had I done so before we came to London, I would have striven to prevent it. But, now, I fear----"
"Fear what?"