Overcome by her late remorse and terrible forebodings, she hid her face in her hands while a nervous trembling seized upon her from head to foot. Felise paused in her frenzied walk and eyed her curiously.
"Mother, are you turning coward in the face of danger?" she asked, with a ring of contempt in her voice.
There was no reply. The bowed face still rested on the trembling hands, the form still shook with nervous terror. Something in the weakness and forlornness of that drooping attitude in the mother who had subordinated everything else to her daughter's welfare, struck like a chill upon Felise, and partially tamed the devil raging within her. She spoke in a gentler tone:
"Rouse yourself, mother. See! I have quite sobered down, and am ready to discuss the matter as calmly and dispassionately as you could wish. Ask what you please, and I will answer."
Mrs. Arnold looked up, taking new heart as she saw that Felise still retained the power to subdue her fiery passions.
"Then tell me, dear, what else Colonel Carlyle has done besides causing Leslie Dane's arrest," said her mother.
Felise grasped the arms of her chair and held herself within it by a frenzied effort of will. Her voice was low and intense as she answered:
"Mother—he found out that Bonnibel was about to fly from him last night—just as I told you she would, you remember—and he—he actually locked her into her rooms, turned Lucy Moore, her maid, into the street—and is keeping his wife a prisoner to prevent her escape."
Mrs. Arnold was too astonished to speak for a minute or two. At length she found voice to utter: