"Everything," answered the villain, sarcastically, "for this fine lady—the mistress of Eden—is old Vane's daughter!"
"No!" exclaimed Mr. Gordon, astonished.
"Yes," triumphantly. "Her name is Laurel Vane, and she belonged to me. She was promised to me, but when her tippling father drank himself to death, she ran away, and, though I have been on her track ever since, I could never find her until to-night. And no wonder; for, with her humble antecedents, I never dreamed of looking for my runaway sweetheart in the wife of the aristocratic Mr. Le Roy!"
Slow, cold, stinging, every word fell on Laurel's heart like a drop of ice. She sprung to her feet and faced him, her dark eyes blazing with scorn and wrath.
"Yes, I am Laurel Vane. That is true," she cried; "but every other word you have uttered, Ross Powell, is a base and cruel lie! I never belonged to you; I have never seen you but once or twice in my life, and then I feared and hated you as one hates the slimy, crawling serpent! I have never belonged to any man but Mr. Le Roy."
"After the terrible way in which you have deceived Mr. Le Roy, you will not find him willing to believe your later assertions," sneered the wretch.
The wretched young creature turned again and looked at her husband, but he still preserved his quiet, statue-like position, his arms folded over, his lips set in a thin, hard line, his eyes blazing with a gloomy, lurid fire beneath the broad, massive brow that was beaded with great, chilly drops of dew. It was the darkest hour of his life. His humiliation was almost greater than he could bear. There was no tenderness, no pity in his somber gaze as it met the wild, appealing eyes of the girl who had deceived him.
But she went to him, she stood humbly and suppliantly before him, her face lighted with passionate love and appeal, upheld by the strength of her girlish will, longing to be forgiven for her sin and taken to his heart again.
"St. Leon, he speaks falsely," she said. "I never belonged to him. I never saw him until after my father's death, and then he basely insulted my helplessness and poverty. In my anger I struck him in the face, and he swore revenge for the blow. You see how he takes it in vilifying my name. Do not listen to him, my husband. I have never loved but you, never belonged to any one but you. I deceived you in the one thing only. Will you not believe me?"