"I will go to papa!" she uttered, angrily; and in a low but perfectly clear voice her tormentor answered:
"Vincent Carew is dead!"
She saw the girl start and tremble as if she had been struck. Her sweet face, flushed a moment ago with anger, went deathly white, and she clutched the back of a chair for support.
"Vincent Carew is dead!" repeated the pitiless woman before her. She heard a moan of mortal agony issue from Kathleen's pale lips, but she continued, heartlessly: "My husband was lost at sea in the Urania, that was burned to the water's edge the very week after my step-daughter was murdered in Pennsylvania. By his will, made in London just before he sailed, he disinherited his daughter for her intimacy with an actor, and left his whole fortune to me and my daughter."
"It is monstrous, impossible! You are telling me a falsehood!" moaned Kathleen, with difficulty, for her senses were leaving her under the shock of her step-mother's words. A low gasp came from her lips, she staggered blindly forward, then fell insensible upon the carpet.
Mrs. Carew spurned the senseless form with her foot and threw wide the velvet portière, calling:
"Jones, lift this woman up and put her out into the street. And be careful never to admit disreputable characters inside my doors again, or you may lose your place!"
The man, who had been lingering about very near, approached with profuse apologies and excuses.
"Carry her out into the street!" repeated his mistress, angrily.