"You would? and yet you have professed to regard me as the thing most precious upon earth to you while you have given the lie to the assertion by leaving me here in the keeping of these wretches whom you disdain to own as your friends. Is it not so?"
He quailed before the scorn in her ringing voice, and the proud gesture of her lifted finger.
"You were safe with them," he muttered. "My dearest friends could not have guarded you more faithfully than they have done."
"It is false," she said, scornfully. "My life has been in constant jeopardy at their hands ever since I first entered this house."
"Miss Lawrence, you are raving," said Doctor Pratt. "These people have been paid to keep you here: it is to their interest to do so. And why should you fancy yourself in danger from them?"
"It is no fancy," she answered, coldly, while her scathing glance fell upon the cowering pair of interrupted murderers like lightning a moment, then returned to the faces of those she addressed. "I assure you, Doctor Pratt, and you, Mr. Colville, that your sudden coming interrupted her—I was on the point of being murdered by that woman there!"
"She lies!" cried Haidee and Peter, simultaneously.
"Silence, wretches!" thundered Dr. Pratt, furiously, reading guilt in their very faces. "Let the lady tell her story, then deny it if you can."
"It is the wine that has got into her head," whined Peter, abjectly.
"Silence, fellow! Now, go on with your story, Miss Lawrence," said the physician, impatiently.