"Both in the sulks," said Mr. Parmalee. "Well, it's natural. He's dying to know, and she'll be torn to pieces afore she breathes a word. She's that sort. But this shyin' and holding off won't do with me. I'm getting tired of waiting, and—and so's another party up to London. Tell her so, Sybilla, with G. W. P.'s compliments, and say that I give her just two more days, and if she doesn't come to book before the end of that time, I'll sell her secret to the highest bidder."
"Yes!" Sybilla said, breathlessly; "and now for that secret, George!"
"You won't tell?" cried Mr. Parmalee, a little alarmed at this precipitation. "Say you won't—never—so help you!"
"Never—I swear it. Now go on!"
* * * * *
An hour later, Sybilla Silver, in her impenetrable disguise, re-entered Kingsland Court. No one had seen her go—no one saw her return. She gained her own room and took off her disguise unobserved.
Once only on her way to it she had paused—before my lady's door—and the dark, beautiful face, wreathed with a deadly smile of hate and exultation, was horribly transformed to the face of a malignant, merciless demon.
CHAPTER XXI.
A STORM BREWING.
Sir Everard Kingsland was blazing in the very hottest of the flame when he tore himself forcibly away from the artist and buried himself in his study. The unutterable degradation of it all, the horrible humiliation that this man and his wife—his—were bound together by some mysterious secret, nearly drove him mad.