She laughed a low, derisive laugh, and came up close to him. He shut his book, and looked at her in wonder.
"What do you mean? Why have you come hither to-night? Why do you look like that? What is it all?"
"It is this! That the mask worn two long years is about to be torn off. It means that you are to hear the truth; it means that the purpose of my life is fulfilled; it means that the hour of my triumph has come."
He sat and looked at her, lost in wonder.
"You do not speak—you sit and stare as though you could not believe your eyes or ears. It is hard to believe, I know—the humble, the meek Sybilla metamorphosed thus. But the Sybilla Silver you knew was a delusion. Behold the real one, for the first time in your life!"
"Woman, who are you? What are you?"
"I am the granddaughter of Zenith the gypsy, the woman your father wronged to the death, and your bitterest enemy, Sir Everard Kingsland!"
"The granddaughter of Zenith the gypsy?" he repeated. "Then Sybilla
Silver is not your name?"
"The name is as false as the character in which she showed herself—that of your friend."
"And yet, the first time we met you saved my life."