"Too late, Charles. Did you say too late?"
But her words roused him to fury again.
"I did," he cried; "I said too late; God knows I was too late. A day, only a day earlier, and I should have been in time to save her!"
"To save Miss Neville? And from what?"
"From what?" he cried; "you are not satisfied with my sufferings, then? but would drain the last bitter drop of agony in my cup—the telling; the naming—Oh, God! She is married!"
Married! Frances was not prepared for this. A mist swam before her eyes; a sudden faintness seized her, and she clung to the back of the sofa for support.
"Yes, married!" he cried, fiercely seizing her arm. "You would have me tell you, and you shall hear it too, and remember it to your dying day; and I—I saw her only an hour after she was lost to me for ever."
But Frances' tongue was stayed, and she never answered one word.
"You have driven me mad," he continued savagely, "and it is a mercy you have not a murder on your soul, for, by Heaven, I was tempted more than once to take my life on my road down here? Do you hear?" he cried.
"Oh, Charles! don't, don't talk so wildly: you will kill me!"