"Lina, have you ever seen Gerald Huntington since that night?" he broke out.
"Never!" she replied, with a shudder, and her pale face grew paler still.
"And you have never guessed why he repudiated you in the very moment he made you his bride?"
"Never," she answered again. "There was some secret connected with it; something he found out when he saw the picture of my mother. I cannot tell what it was—I have no idea."
"I saw Gerald Huntington at the opera last night," he said, startlingly.
Jaquelina sprang to her feet, and looked at him in a very panic of terror.
"You saw him," she said, her breath coming and going in fluttering gasps. "Oh, Mr. Earle!" she cried out in wild hope and anxiety; "did Uncle Charlie ever try to get me freed from him, if indeed I was ever bound? for it seemed to me a mere farce—nothing more."
"He did not try, Lina—you were gone, and it seemed as if you were dead," Walter said, hesitatingly.
"He did not try—and Gerald Huntington is here? Oh, Mr. Earle! do you think he has recognized me? Why is he here? What does he mean to do? Oh, if I had never returned here!" Jaquelina cried, rapidly and excitedly.
Before Walter could reply the door was pushed open, and Violet Earle came quickly into the room.