‘Nothing! You know what it is to me, Artémise.’
‘Yes, I know what it is to you. It is hate and revenge—and do you think your motives are stronger than hers? You want to pay off an old score, but she wants to live respected and to provide for her child. She will send detectives after me everywhere as soon as she knows. She will have you watched so that I shall never be able to approach you. It will be good-bye for ever between you and me, Cecile, if I am to carry out that rôle——’
‘Artémise, you are too cruel! You know that I cannot live long without you. You know that seeing you, having you at hand, is my only comfort. I live only while you are here; for the rest of the time I only exist, I vegetate, and hate the light——’
‘I know,’ said Mrs. Brown, in a slightly softened tone, ‘that you are fond of me, Cecile; that I have been more or less necessary to you ever since I was born. You must make up your mind, however, soon, for it will certainly be as I say.’
‘No, no!’ said Mrs. Swinford, rising from her sofa, trailing her long skirts after her from end to end of the beautiful room. ‘No, no! We will leave this place; we will go to Paris, where we can be secure. There are places there no detective would think of. Detective—an English detective’—she laughed her tinkling intolerable laugh. ‘Bunglers all! what do they ever find out? I tell you, Artémise, we can live there in perfect safety, you and I together—and see our friends—and amuse ourselves. All with you! Fancy what a changed life!’
‘On the edge of a volcano—for me.’
‘On the edge of no volcano—what could be done to you? Nothing! It is no crime—and she would give it up very soon. She could not help herself, she would have no money. These people will take even her allowance from her—she will have nothing, nothing—not a penny, not a name; she will have to work—she will not think much of detectives then; she will not be able to go to law. No, Artémise; we shall live together, and you will be safe, safe as a child.’
‘My dear Cecile! In the meantime if all this should come to pass, Leo will marry Lady William, who will have no alternative but to accept him, and it will be she who will have the revenge, not you. Stop a bit—and he has plenty of money, and will never rest till he has found me out. He will know well enough where to look. All that you know in Paris, and more, he knows.’
Mrs. Swinford had kept saying ‘No, no, no!’ all the time. Her face flushed, her eyes shone.
‘He shall not, he shall not! It will be with my curse. He shall never, never do it,’ she cried. ‘I would rather he were dead.’