“Don’t let her off too easy!” cried Adeline. “Skiff, you fool, how much did you say? It shall be five thousand florins if it’s a penny, my lady. Or we’ll show you up, Baroness Helmont of the Horst!”
With Gerard’s return Adeline had grown utterly reckless in her fierce hatred of Ursula.
“I am glad you speak so plainly,” said Ursula, coldly. “In this manner you will certainly never get a penny out of me.”
For only answer Adeline poured out a flood of accusation, sprinkled with foul language, from which Ursula gathered for the first time what tales had been circulated against her in the village.
She stood frozen to marble—to marble splashed with mud that no current of years would ever again remove. “That is all?” she said at length, when Adeline paused for breath.
“All!” shrieked the woman. “Skiff, d’ye hear my lady? She don’t think it’s enough! I wonder what your two lovers’ll say, madam, Theodore and Gerard!”
“Hold your tongue,” growled the man, shamefacedly, “or I’ll make you. She has such a temper, my lady, she goes off her head at times. I hope your nobleness’ll forgive her and remember I’m a poor man.”
Ursula had understood, as the torrent swept down upon her, that these people knew nothing—absolutely nothing. They could not hurt her, except by such vague slander as any man may speak. Her secret was still her own, entirely her own, shared by none but a half-crazy creature, whose tardy story, if told, would never carry conviction. And now her set face grew gentle, and the floodgates of her charity opened.
