"I do not care how far it be so that I have beautiful Irene for my companion, and a large bank account to draw on," Julius Revington answered, with a coarse laugh.
"And this contemptible creature is the man Irene loves, the man she would wed," Guy Kenmore said to himself in bitter disgust.
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
"What am I to do?" Irene asked herself that night when she was alone in the quiet and seclusion of her chamber.
She had laughed and sung and jested while Guy Kenmore's eyes were upon her, and feigned an indifference she was very far from feeling. But now she had to tear off the mask so proudly worn, and face her fate.
"What am I to do?" she asked herself, miserably, as she walked up and down the floor in her pretty blue dressing-gown, with her white hands twisted together in a childish fashion she had. "I do not believe the heroine of the most impossible novel was ever placed in a more harrowing situation. Here am I betrothed to the villain of the story, when my husband, whom I believed to be dead, unexpectedly pops upon the scene. And instead of his appearance simplifying matters, it tangles them into a Gordian knot, and I can only ask myself what I shall do!"
She laughed—a mocking, mirthless little laugh that startled a dozen eerie little echoes in the corners of the room.
"Heigh-ho! I know what I would do if he loved me," she said to herself, wistfully, "I would fly to my husband's arms, and defy Julius Revington to do his worst. I would say to him proudly, I have here an honest name, and a true love of which your machinations cannot deprive me!"