"No, miss, nor I don't think I can. Was it so very important?" returns the girl.
"Important! My very life hangs on its production," Maud says, wildly. "You have looked carelessly. I could swear that it is in this room. It must be found."
"I'll look again. Perhaps I've overlooked it, being in a hurry," the maid returns, patiently, and Maud turns again to her cousin.
"Nellie has always been very faithful to me," she says. "She was in my confidence. She knew the trysting-place in the woods where I was to meet Mr. Clyde. As soon as she learned that it was likely you would marry Vane Charteris and cheat me out of Uncle Langton's fortune, she hastened after me, and urged me to return and prevent such a catastrophe. I decided at once to return. I had no notion of doing the love-in-a-cottage business with my poor, but handsome lover."
"You were heartless, Maud," Reine says, with a flash of her superb, dark eyes.
"So Mr. Clyde said," carelessly. "Anyway, I told him I should come back. He was very angry. He drove Nell back, and swore I should stay and go with him to the preacher that was even then waiting to marry us. I would not yield an inch, and as soon as I could I got away."
"Why do you tell me all this, Maud?" Reine says, with something like royal scorn. "You make me think very little of you."
"You will perhaps think very little of yourself presently," beautiful Maud answers, maliciously. "Come here, Nellie, and tell Mrs. Charteris all the hard things her husband said about her when Mr. Langton almost went down on his knees to him to marry her."
"How can she know?" Reine says, puzzled.