“I do not understand. Has the mere sight of an old friend so overcome you?” she asked, with a little of her old coquetry; and, going nearer, she laid her white hand on his arm, but he shrunk in horror from her light touch.
“I—I—thought—you—dead!” he managed to mutter, in disconnected words; and she removed her hand from his arm and fell back a pace from him.
“You thought me dead? Ah, then, you did not come here to see me?” bitterly.
“Certainly not,” he answered, regaining himself in a measure, though he was still ghastly white and trembling.
“I thought you dead four years ago. Norman de Vere had married again. It was to see his second wife that I came to Verelands.”
“His second wife? What was she to you or your sister?” Camille asked, with a sneer.
“A dear and valued friend,” he replied, gazing at her with eyes of steady scorn that made her burst out angrily:
“The poor foundling creature, basely born, no doubt, was fortunate in finding nobly born friends like Lady Moreland and Lord Stuart?”
“I do not understand your allusions,” Lord Stuart said, icily.
“Do you not?” she asked, in wonder. She gazed steadily at him, then said, eagerly: “Lord Stuart, possibly you do not know the whole story of my bitter wrongs at the hands of my faithless husband. Will you not sit down and let me tell you all?”