She took in the contents of the letter at a single glance, and then she sprung from her seat and faced him defiantly. Oh, how terribly white and stern his face had grown since he had entered that room.
"Did you hear the question I put to you, Mrs. Gardiner?" he cried, hoarsely, his temper and his suspicions fairly aroused at Sally's expression.
The truth of the words in the anonymous letter is slowly forcing itself upon him.
If ever a woman looked guilty, she did at that moment. She stands trembling before him, her eyes fixed upon the floor, her figure drooping, her hands tightly clasped.
"Well?" he says, sharply; and she realizes that there is no mercy in that tone; he will be pitiless, hard as marble.
"It ought never to have been," she said, as if speaking to herself. "I wish I could undo it."
"You wish you could undo what?" asked her husband, sternly.
"Our marriage. It was all a mistake—all a mistake," she faltered.
She must say something, and those are the first words that come across her mind. While he is answering them, she will have an instant of time to think what she will say about the contents of the letter.
Deny it she will with her latest breath. Let him prove that she went riding with Victor Lamont—if he can!