He made no response. My words had, as I intended, produced an overwhelming effect upon him. He saw, that if La Gioia’s secret was out he stood in deadliest peril. I had impressed him with an intimate knowledge of the whole affair.
It was at that moment he showed himself full of resourceful villainy.
“The vengeance of La Gioia will fall upon the woman who is your wife—not upon yourself.”
“And through whom?” I cried. “Why, through yourself and your accomplice, Tattersett, who betrayed Beryl into her hands. The mystery of Whitton is to me no mystery, for I know the truth.”
He glared at me as though I were some evil vision, and I knew that by these words I was slowly thrusting home the truth.
“What have I to do with the affair at Whitton?” he cried. “I know nothing of it?”
“I may, perhaps, be enabled to prove differently,” I said.
“Do you then allege that I am implicated in the Colonel’s death?” he exclaimed furiously.
“I have my own opinion,” I responded. “Remember that you once made a desperate and dastardly, attempt to kill me, fearing lest I should denounce you as having tried to bribe me to commit murder.”
His eyes glittered, and I saw that his anger was unbounded. We stood there in the calm sunset near the lakeside, and I could see that he would rid himself of me, if such a course was possible. But I thought of Beryl. Ah! how I loved her. That she had fallen a victim of the cleverly contrived conspiracy incensed me, and I resolved to show the scoundrel no quarter.