"In the Beech Walk," she answered, promptly.
"With whom?"
"With Mr. Parmalee."
Her glance never fell. She looked at him proudly, unquailingly, full in the face. The look in his flaming eyes, the tone of his ominous voice, were bitterly insulting, and with insult her imperious spirit rose.
"And you dare stand before me—you dare look me in the face," he said, "and tell me this?"
"I dare!" she said, proudly. "You have yet to learn what I dare do,
Sir Everard Kingsland!"
She drew herself up in her beauty and her pride, erect and defiant. Her long hair fell loose and unbound, her face was colorless as marble; but her dark eyes were flashing with anger and wounded pride, and at her brightest she had never looked more beautiful than she did now.
"So beautiful and so lost!" he said, bitterly. "So utterly deceitful and depraved! Surely what they tell of her mother must be true. The taint of dishonor is in the blood!"
The change was instantaneous. The pallor of her face turned to a burning red. She clasped her hands with a sudden spasm over her heart.
"My mother!" she gasped. "What do you say of her?"