She was making a desperate effort to seem as usual, and talked on.
"We have had old Lady Alice Redcliffe here, my chaperon, all this while, if you please, and takes such ridiculous care of me, and locks me into my room every night. She means kindly, but it is very foolish."
"We have been employed very much as usual--walking, and driving, and croquet. Beatrix and I have been very much together, and Sir Paul and Lady Blunket still here. I don't think we have had any arrival since you left us. Mr. Guy Strangways has gone away, and Monsieur Varbarriere returned to-day."
She was gabbling as merrily as she could, feeling all the time on the point of fainting.
"And the diamonds came?" the General said, suddenly, with a sort of laugh.
"Oh! yes, the diamonds, so beautiful. I did not thank you in my letter--not half enough. They are beautiful--so exquisitely beautiful--brilliants--and so becoming; you have no idea. I hope you got my letter. Indeed I felt it all, every word, Arthur, only I could not say half what I wished. Don't you believe me, Arthur?"
"Lie down, woman, and take your sleep; you sleep _well_? you _all_ do--of course you sleep? Lie down."
"You are angry, Arthur; you are excited; something has happened--something bad--what is it? For God's sake, Arthur, tell me what it is. Why won't you tell me?"
"Nothing--nothing strange--quite common."
"Oh! Arthur, tell me at once, or kill me. You look as if you hated me."
"_Hate_ you!--There's a hereafter. God sees."
"I can't understand you, Arthur; you wish to distract me. I'd rather know anything. For mercy's sake speak out."
She did lie down. The hour of judgment had come as a thief in the night. The blood in her temples seemed to drum on the pillow. There was not a clear thought in her brain, only the one stunning consciousness.
"He knows all! I am ruined." Yet the feminine instinct of _finesse_ was not quite overpowered.
Having placed the candle on the chimneypiece, so that the curtain at the foot of the bed throw its shadow over that recess in which the sorcerer Varbarriere had almost promised to show the apparition, old Lennox sat down at the bedside, next this mysterious point of observation. Suddenly it crossed him, as a break of moonlight will the blackest night of storm, that he must act more wisely. Had he not alarmed his wife?--what signal might not be contrived to warn off her guilty accomplice?