She hailed a carriage and gave the address to the coachman incoherently, then sprang in and closed the door upon herself, eager to shut out the very sight of the world.
"Balked!" she muttered, fiercely. "Baffled just when success seemed within my grasp! Curse them—curse them both! I have plotted and planned for nothing. I have betrayed my unhappy mother into the power of that wretch Meriaz, and what have I gained? Nothing! Nothing except that he loves her more than ever. I have proven to him the very depth and power of her love while striving to demonstrate mine. I have placed her upon the very pinnacle I would have given my soul to occupy. And what have I gained? His hatred—his contempt—his bitter loathing! I have shut myself out from his presence eternally! And I loved him so! My God! I loved him so!"
She covered her face with her hands, and a wild storm of weeping burst from her, so overpowering that she did not know when the carriage had stopped, did not know when the coachman climbed down from his box and spoke to her, did not hear until he touched her lightly upon the arm.
She scarcely remembered afterward how it was she got into the house; but she found her mother standing in the hall upon her entrance, looking like a wraith, in her white gown, with her still whiter face gleaming above it.
"Meriaz has come for his answer," she groaned, speaking the words almost before the door had been closed upon her daughter—"Meriaz has come for his answer! For the love of Heaven, tell me what I am to say?"
"Tell him," cried Jessica, bending forward, and curiously speaking the words through her set teeth—"tell him that he lied! That Leith Pierrepont is not guilty of murder! Tell him that news has come from the South, and Leith is free! Tell him that which he knows but too well, that it was his own daughter who was the murderess!"
No cry from the lips of woman ever equaled in mortal anguish that which fell from Mrs. Chalmers. She staggered back against the wall, her eyes wild in their insane rolling.
"His daughter!" she gasped. "Muriel Meriaz!"
"If that is her name," returned Jessica, sullenly. "You appear to know her better than I. Yes, she is the murderess. But what is that to you, or me, that you should turn the hue of death itself? What is that to you, or me, that you should gasp and moan as if you yourself were facing the gallows? We have lost our game; but I don't see why you should agonize over the daughter of a scoundrel like that—a creature whom you never saw; a—"
She was looking so intently at her mother that she did not see a man's form come into the hall, did not know of his presence there until his hard, iron fingers closed upon her arm; then she turned and looked into the scowling face of Manuel Meriaz.