[CHAPTER XXXII.]
For a moment there is complete silence, while the wicked and vindictive woman glares with all the bitterness of baffled hate and vengeance upon her beautiful foe who had so nearly been her victim.
The Lady Vera speaks in a tone of cold and withering contempt:
"Could you not have been satisfied with the wrongs you have inflicted on me and mine, Marcia Cleveland, without attempting my life?"
"You should have known better than to think I could remain quiescent under your malicious vengeance! Did you think I could stand idly by and see you ruin my daughter's whole life without striking back at you?" the woman answers, sullenly.
"No, for I knew that there was too much of the venomous serpent in your nature," Lady Vera answers, with stinging scorn. "But I believe that even malevolence like yours would have shrunk abashed before such a terrible crime as this which you have attempted. Do you not tremble at the consequences of what you have done?"
"I have done nothing. I have only failed in what would have been a source of pride and joy to me if I had succeeded," Mrs. Cleveland answers, with sullen bravado.
"Infamous wretch!" Sir Harry Clive mutters audibly, while Colonel Lockhart, with a deathly-pale face and blazing eyes, appears to restrain himself with difficulty from springing upon her and tossing her out of the window.
"Should you indeed have been so glad to see me dead?" Lady Vera inquires, with a slight tone of mournfulness.