"Yes, it is I, Gerelda!" she cried, hoarsely, confronting him. "I have come back from the grave to claim you!"
She did not heed his wild cry of horror, but went on, mockingly: "You do not seem pleased to see me, judging from your manner."
For an instant the world seemed closing around Hubert Varrick.
She cried, "I repeat that I am here to claim you!" flinging herself in an arm-chair opposite him.
"Now that your wife is with you once again, you are saved the trouble—just, in time, too—of wedding a new one;" adding: "You are not giving me the welcome which I expected in my husband's home. Turn on the lights and ring for every one to come hither!" she said. "If you refuse to ring the bell, I shall."
Hubert Varrick cried out that he could not bear it; he pleaded with her to leave the house with him; that since Heaven had brought her back to him, he would make the best of it; all that he would ask would be that she should come quietly away with him.
This did not suit Gerelda at all; she had set her heart upon abusing Jessie Bain, and she would brook no refusal. She sprang hastily for the bell-rope. Divining her object, he caught her arm.
If he had not been so intensely excited he would have realized, even in that dim light, that there was something horribly wrong about her; that once more reason, which had been until so lately clouded, wavered in the balance.
"Unhand me, or I shall scream!" she cried.
Varrick placed one hand hurriedly over her mouth, in his agony, hardly heeding what he was doing.