"My mother mistook her for a beggar. How was she to know she was anything to you?"
Georgia broke into a scornful laugh, and resumed her walk.
"Positively, Mrs. Wildair," said Richmond, flushing crimson with anger, "this insulting conduct is too much. If I cannot command your obedience, I at least insist on your respect. And as we are upon the subject, I beg in your intercourse with one of my guests you will remember you are a wedded wife. You seem to have forgotten it pretty well up to the present, both of you."
She had sunk on a sofa, her face hidden in the cushions, her hands clasped over her heart, as if to still the intolerable pain there. She made no reply to the words that had struck her ear, but conveyed no meaning, and after waiting in vain for an answer, he resumed, with a still deepening frown:
"You will not honor me with an answer, madam. Probably your smiles and answers are all alike reserved for the fascinating Captain Arlingford. How do you intend to meet my mother, Mrs. Wildair, after what has happened to-day?"
"Oh, Richmond, I do not know! Oh, Richmond, do, do leave me!"
"Madam!"
"I am so tired, and so sick. I cannot talk to-night!" she cried out, lifting her bowed head, and clasping her hands to her throbbing temples.
"Be it so, then, madam. I shall not intrude again," said Richmond, as, with a face dark with anger, he turned and left the room.
Next morning at breakfast Georgia did not appear. There was an embarrassment—a restraint upon all present, which deepened when the unconscious Captain Arlingford, the only one who ventured to pronounce her name, inquired for Mrs. Wildair.