"Oblige me, ladies and gentlemen, by letting him go. I deserve this public desertion for my folly in marrying my inferior. The name on the card is 'Mrs. Plowden.'"
A blood-curdling groan nearly froze the blood in the veins of the guests. It came from under the table, whence, simultaneously with it, emerged Plowden, to whom terror lent instant animation and activity.
"My wife!" he breathed, huskily.
"Your wife!" exclaimed Gertrude. "Then it is true! You are a bigamist!"
"Yes! No! She's dead! Save me from her!" he cried incoherently, rushing to the French window overlooking the lawn and throwing it open. "You will forgive me, Gertrude," he declaimed, with his foot upon the window-sill, "when the black waters are surging over my head. Farewell! Farewell forever!" And leaping out into the darkness, he was gone.
"Stop him! stop him, someone!" pleaded Gertrude. "He will drown himself!"
"He can't," sneered Miss Fithian; "the fish-pond is frozen over."
"I would advise you, sir," now remarked Mrs. Rutherford to her husband, in a voice of suppressed passion, "to follow your fellow-criminal."
"I will, madam," he retorted, in a like tone of restrained fury; "and since you actually presume to order me from my own house, I go—never to return." As he spoke, he too passed out through the window.
A momentary awe seemed to oppress those remaining at the table. The silence was soon broken, however, by Wildfen saying to his wife: