Now, I should hardly have known her. She was plainly attired, without patches or paint, wearing a grey silk dress. But the chief change was not in her dress, but in her face. She was pale, and her cheeks were haggard. She looked like a woman who had recently suffered a severe illness, and was, indeed, not yet fully recovered.
"Jack," she advanced, giving me her hand with her old graciousness, "you are very good to come when I call. It is the last time that you will obey any call from me."
"Why the last time, madam?"
"Because, Jack, I am now going to make you my bitter enemy. Yes, my enemy for life." She tried to smile, but her eyes grew humid. "I can never be regarded henceforth as anything else. You will despise me—you will curse me. Yet I must needs speak."
"Madam, I protest—I know not what you mean."
"And I, Jack, I protest—know not how to begin. Do you remember last January, when we talked together? Let me begin there. Yes; it will be best to begin there. I do not think I could begin at the other end. It would be like a bath of ice-cold water in January."
"I remember our conversation, madam."
"You told me—what was it you told me? Something about a certain box, or case of jewels."
"Molly's jewels. Yes, I told you how his lordship seized upon them at the first when he claimed control over Molly's fortune."
"You told me that. It was in January. He had seized upon them six months before. The thing surprised me. He had always told me that he could not get those jewels—and Jack, you see, they were my own."