The tremor was in her voice again.
"What does it mean, at all?" thought Val; "it can't be that she cares for the fellow, surely!"
"Is his mother worse, do you know?" she asked, her spirit rebelling against the question her torturing anxiety forced from her.
"Now it is coming!" thought Val; "bless my soul! but it is hard to get out! It sticks in my throat like Macbeth's amen! Madam," he said, aloud, facing round and plunging into the icy shower-bath at once, "there has been a terrible mistake, which only came to my knowledge last night. A great wrong has been done you by Mr. Wyndham, and it is to inform you of it I have come here to-day."
Her pale face turned blood-red, and then ghastly white.
"You need not tell me," she cried, "I know it! She is not his mother!"
"She is not!" said Val, very much surprised; "but how in the world did you find it out?"
She did not speak. She sat looking at him with a dreadful fixed stare.
"Tell me all," she said; "tell me all! Who is she?"
"She is his wife! I don't think you can know that. He was a married man before he ever saw you here."