"You dare not deny it," she hissed.
"I do not intend to. It is quite true," he replied, doggedly.
"I knew it! How I hate her!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, vindictively. "Would to God she had perished in the sea that day! From the very first I hated her even before I dreamed of her identity!"
And for a few moments the air was filled with the sharp ravings of her anger and bitter hatred.
"How have you learned so much?" inquired Julius Revington, curiously, for he had fancied that the mystery surrounding Irene was impenetrable to all but himself.
"No matter. I am not blind to anything around me. I carry too terrible a secret in my breast to run the risk of its detection. I must guard it at every point," she replied. "Can you guess what question I am about to ask you, Julius Revington? You cannot? It is this, then, and mind that you answer me truly. Do you intend to turn traitor?"
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
"Traitor? What do you mean?" stammered Julius Revington.
"You know well enough what I mean," flashed Mrs. Stuart angrily. "You are going to marry that girl, and of course her welfare will be yours. It will be to your interest to betray me. Do you intend to reveal the secret and drive me and Lilia out into the world nameless and disgraced—— through no fault of mine, remember, but through the sin of that old dotard who should have carried his miserable secret to the grave with him?"