“You will wait a moment,” he said. “I have news for you. The missing child is found.”
“Really!” she sneered; but an icy shudder shook her from head to foot, and a silent malediction against Finette’s bungling trembled on her lips.
“Yes, she is found, Camille,” he said. “And, oh, Camille, Camille, imagine my feelings when I found that you had deceived me—that you were the guilty party!”
“How dare you accuse me?” she stormed, springing to her feet, wrathfully beautiful, determined to brave it out to the end; but he answered her with that smile that was half sorrow, half scorn:
“Denials are useless. You worked through Finette, your diabolical French maid. She took the child from my mother’s arms while she slept. She went on horseback with her captive to one of the worst quarters of Jacksonville, where she gave her to a miserable, brutal old rag-picker, who has half starved that innocent little angel, beaten her till she is covered with stripes, and forced her to stand in the streets and beg for her food! Oh, my wife! how little I dreamed that you could be capable of such cruelty!”
While he spoke the guilty woman stood her ground, facing him defiantly, her white face twitching with sneers, her jeweled hands clinching and unclinching themselves in impotent wrath, as the young man went on, scathingly:
“It is no wonder you will not part with your clever maid. She is too useful to you. But her time has come now. She shall go!”
“Norman!” cried his mother, beseechingly; but neither of them heeded her. Camille was crying passionately:
“Who is my accuser?”
“The detective whom I employed to unravel the mysterious affair. He dragged it out of the miserable old rag picker with whom Finette made her bargain.”