So she sat and mused, and pondered, and the amber light in the east faded away into palest saffron, and the solemn shadows deepened and lengthened upon the still bosom of the water.
Suddenly there came a sharp footstep and the rustle of a woman's silken skirts across the stone flags behind her. She looked up quickly; Helen stood beside her. Helen, in all the sheen of her gay Paris garments, with the evening light upon her uncovered head, and the glow of a passion, fiercer than madness, in her glittering eyes. Some prescience of evil—she knew not of what—made Vera spring to her feet.
Helen spoke to her shortly and defiantly.
"Miss Nevill, you are waiting here for my husband, are you not?"
A faint flush rose in Vera's face.
"Yes," she answered, very quietly. "I am waiting to speak a few words to him."
"You have something to give him, have you not? Some letters that are mine, and which you have probably read."
Helen said the words quickly and feverishly; her voice shook and trembled. Vera looked surprised and even indignant.
"I don't understand you, Mrs. Kynaston," she began, coldly.
"Oh, yes, you understand me perfectly. Give me my letters, Miss Nevill; you have no doubt read them all," and she laughed harshly and sneeringly.