“And by doing so you will at once make her your enemy.”
“No, your own enemy, Doctor Malvano,” she exclaimed, correcting him haughtily. “I am blameless in this matter.”
He looked straight into her dark, sunken eyes, and smiled grimly.
“It is surely best to preserve her friendship,” he urged. “We have enemies enough, in all conscience.”
“Reflect,” she answered quickly. “Reflect for a moment what exposure means to us. If Gemma marries Armytage, then our secret is no longer safe.”
“But surely she has no object to attain in denouncing us, especially as in doing so she must inevitably implicate herself,” he observed.
“No,” she said gravely, after a brief pause. “In this matter I have my own views. They must be parted, Filippo. Armytage has the strongest motive—the motive of a fierce and terrible vengeance—for revealing everything.”
“But why has Armytage any motive in denouncing us? You speak in enigmas.”
“The secret of his motive is mine alone,” the haggard-eyed woman answered. “Seek no explanation, for you can never gain knowledge of the truth until too late, when the whole affair is exposed. It is sufficient for me to tell you that he must be parted from Gemma.”
Her wizened face was bloodless and brown beneath its paint and powder, her blue lips were closed tight, and a hard expression showed itself at the corners of her cruel mouth.