"Never, never!" Mrs. Gordon sobbed, bitterly.
Vain, proud, ambitious woman as she was, her heart was almost broken by this terrible shock.
Mr. Gordon's voice broke scornfully upon Laurel's tumultuous thoughts.
"And this dutiful daughter of mine, did she add to her iniquities by arranging a marriage for you? Did she teach you to deceive this honorable gentleman and trap him into a marriage with a wretched impostor?"
The harsh words struck her like the stinging cut of a lash. She shivered and dropped her eyes, but she did not flinch from answering him. A marvelous bravery upheld her while she confessed her fault and exonerated Beatrix.
"Mine is the fault," she said. "If your daughter had suspected the madness that filled me, she would have betrayed me—she would never have tolerated it for one hour. She wished me to go abroad with her; she did not dream of the truth. But I—I sent Clarice back to her, and I stayed on at Eden. The fault is mine; the consequences," her voice faltered almost to a moan, "be upon my own head."
St. Leon had never yet spoken a word. Pale, statue-like, he stood, his hearing strained to catch every word that fell from the lips of his wife—his wife, whom he had believed to be an angel, but whom he now knew as a false and reckless woman who had stolen into his home and heart under a lying guise.
"And you," said Mr. Gordon, sternly—"who are you that have dared do this terrible wrong? What is your name? Whence came you?"
She turned suddenly and lifted her dark, anguished eyes to her husband's face in mute wonder and entreaty. In its lightning scorn, its terrible indignation, she read her doom. With a moan of despair she let the long, dark lashes fall until they shaded her burning cheeks and answered Mr. Gordon:
"Do not ask me my name nor my history. What can it matter to you who hate me? My heart is broken. Let me shroud myself in merciful mystery."