Then they looked fixedly at each other, the handsome, insolent woman and the pale, wretched girl.
“Oh, Louise, how did you have the heart to do all that you have done?” Molly cried out, passionately.
“You can ask me that? After your treachery to Cecil Laurens?” scornfully.
“You were to blame. Why did you make me stay there when I begged to come away? I shall tell Cecil everything, and then he can not in justice be so hard on me,” Molly exclaimed, passionately; but she shrank from the cold, cruel smile that curled the red lips of her handsome step-sister.
“You will tell him nothing. He would not believe you if you went down on your knees to him. Besides, I wonder how you can think of telling him anything, of ever seeing him again even, when he has deserted you and gone away rejoicing that you were not his wife, and refusing to repair your disgrace.”
A low, anguished moan was the only reply of the girl whose face was buried in the bed-clothes, for those low, stinging words had maddened her with shame.
Louise went on, icily:
“I came here this morning to offer to help you in your arrangements for going away. I expected to find you gone already indeed, for how can you have the hardihood to stay here in Cecil Laurens’ house after what has happened? He is nothing to you, less than nothing!”
“Hush, Louise! I am his wife in the sight of Heaven!” the wretched wife cried out in passionate denial, and the utter agony of her face might have moved a heart of stone, but Louise Barry was pitiless.
“Nonsense!” she said, curtly. “Your marriage under a false name and identity is utterly void in law, and Cecil Laurens was quick to take advantage of the fact. You are a disgraced creature, and nothing remains to you but flight to some far secluded spot, where none who know you now can ever hear of you again.”