“Catherine—”
With immeasurable contempt looking brightly out of her steady eyes, his wife stopped him.
“Not a word!”
He refused to be silent. “It is I,” he said; “I only who am to blame.”
“Spare yourself the trouble of making excuses,” she answered; “they are needless. Herbert Linley, the woman who was once your wife despises you.”
Her eyes turned from him and rested on Sydney Westerfield.
“I have a last word to say to you. Look at me, if you can.”
Sydney lifted her head. She looked vacantly at the outraged woman before her, as if she saw a woman in a dream.
With the same terrible self-possession which she had preserved from the first—standing between her husband and her governess—Mrs. Linley spoke.
“Miss Westerfield, you have saved my child’s life.” She paused—her eyes still resting on the girl’s face. Deadly pale, she pointed to her husband, and said to Sydney: “Take him!”