“I have done nothing that my children should be cursed,” she said wildly. “It is you—you—”
The Master of Stair interrupted her.
“Take care,” he said, very white. “You utter the unforgivable—”
“I shall not ask you to forgive,” she answered. “I do not want your favor—you and your blighted race have crazed me—I will say it—I am haunted—day and night—and it is unjust.” Her voice was shrill and tortured. “It is unjust that I should so pay because I was foolish and very young—and married you. God knows I never loved you!”
Her words rang cruelly round the vast room and seemed to echo through the pause that followed; the only sound was the rustle of the leaves of the Viscount’s book as he turned them and the scratch of his pen as he made a note; the Master of Stair looked sternly before him, his face hardened to a great bitterness.
Lady Dalrymple shuddered; the reaction of her passion came in the heavy tears that rolled down her face. With a childish gesture she put up the back of her hand to hide them, and turned miserably away across the room.
Down the whole gloomy length she went slowly with a weary air of hopelessness; the Viscount looked up from his book, watched her and when the door closed on her gave a little sigh of relief.
“She gets onto a note very irritating to the nerves,” he remarked. “It is astonishing how few women will learn to use their words with effect—they throw at you all they can think of—then burst into tears—which is neither logical nor pleasing.”
The Master of Stair made no answer; at his feet was a beautiful pink rose his wife had dropped; he picked it up and flung it into the fire.
The Viscount shut his book and turned with a yawn.