“Rise, Harold Castello. I did not send for you here to listen to your abhorred love. I summoned you to tell me how I was entrapped into this unholy marriage.”
The calmness of despair breathed in the low, musical voice, the pallor of despair was on the exquisite face. She was no longer the simple girl, Violet, moved to tears or laughter at a breath; she was a woman who had lost her love, whose life lay in ruins, whose soul quailed in secret at its terrible betrayal.
She realized the despotic power of the man who had cheated her into this union, she knew as well as if he had already told her that this gilded cage was her prison, that she was surrounded by his minions, that nothing remained to her but submission or—death. That would be her only escape from her loathed husband.
So, with a calmness that she could not understand, she faced him:
“It’s too late for recriminations, too late for entreaties. I know your flinty heart too well. I realize my fate too thoroughly. Only tell me why Cecil did not come; tell me who detained him; tell me who plotted this terrible thing?”
“Suppose I answer that it was all my own doing, Violet?”
“All your own? Then, how did you keep Cecil away? It seemed to me that nothing but death could have kept my beloved from my side in our bridal hour! Did you—did you”—her face blanching to yet more deadly pallor—“meet him and murder him on his way to me?”
“Good heavens, no! Cecil Grant is alive and well.”
“And loves me still,” she cried, suddenly lifting her hand on which the magnificent oriental opal glowed in rainbow hues. Then she saw above it a plain gold band, and wrenching it off, flung it far from her in disgust. “How dare you?” she half sobbed, in sudden, futile passion.
Harold Castello laughed lightly.