[CHAPTER XXX.]
A THREAT.
The old man's face grew pale and troubled.
"Celia, can not you let by-gones be by-gones?" he cried, tremulously. "I am old and feeble. I needed some one to take care of me, and as Serena—"
"Offered herself? Yes, I suppose that is about the case. All the same, I should think that you would have kept the promise you made me, since that was all the atonement you could make for my lost life—my ruined happiness. Bernard Dane, you are a villain!"
The old man's face grew stern, and a grim smile touched his lips.
"So I am. I don't deny it, Celia. When I look back upon my own past and recall all my awful deeds, and worse than all else, the plot that I had formed against two lives—the cruel, horrible plot—to ruin the happiness of two innocent hearts, I hate myself, I scorn myself, I loathe myself. Celia, you can not speak one half as bad of me as I deserve. But do not arraign me for taking the step that I have taken. I was ill and alone—"
"You might have sent for me!" the woman cried, passionately. "I would have nursed and tended you. But instead you hung a mill-stone around your neck which will prove your ruin. Serena Lynne is an artful, designing wretch, yet you think she is disinterested, perhaps. Bernard Dane, I am your wife in all justice—ay, more—"
She checked herself abruptly. The old man bowed his head, and silence—awful silence—fell over the room. Every word that she had uttered had stung his heart with the full force of truth, and for a time conscience—that whip of scorpions—stung him with its bitter smart.
Well, it was some satisfaction to be convinced that he still possessed a conscience. He drew a little nearer her side at length, and laid his hand upon her shoulder.