“What folly are you considering?” she asked.
“Your ladyship is wasting time, and time, as Mr. Caryll has said, is pressing.”
She crossed to the door, controlled almost despite herself by the calm air of purpose that was investing him. “You are not thinking of—”
“You shall learn very soon of what I am thinking, ma'am. I beg that you will give us leave.”
She paused almost upon the threshold. “If you do a rashness, here, remember that I can still act without you,” she reminded him. “You may choose to believe that that man is your brother, and so, out of that, and”—she added with a cruel sneer at Hortensia—“other considerations, you may elect to let him go. But remember that you still have me to reckon with. Whether he prove of your blood or not, he cannot prove himself of mine—thank God!”
His lordship bowed in silence, preserving an unmoved countenance, whereupon she cursed him for a fool, and passed out. He closed the door, and turned the key, Hortensia watching him in a sort of horror. “Let me go!” she found voice to cry at last, and advanced towards the door herself. But Rotherby came to meet her, his face white, his eyes glowing. She fell away before his opening arms, and he stood still, mastering himself.
“That man,” he said, jerking a backward thumb at the closed door, “lives or dies, goes free or hangs, as you shall decide, Hortensia.”
She looked at him, her face haggard, her heart beating high in her throat as if to suffocate her. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You love him!” he growled. “Pah! I see it in your eyes—in your tremors—that you do. It is for him that you are afraid, is't not?”
“Why do you mock me with it?” she inquired with dignity.