Part 45 (1/2)

”I think my past relations with you have not served to establish a feeling of excessive confidence in you,” was the quietly ironical response.

The man flushed hotly, while anger for the moment rendered him speechless.

”Possibly you might be able to induce your--companion to surrender the doc.u.ment,” the lady added, after a minute of awkward silence.

Gerald G.o.ddard gnawed his under lip in impotent wrath at this sarcastic reference to the woman who had shared his life for so many years; while the wretched eavesdropper herself barely suppressed a moan of pa.s.sionate anguish.

”You have very little idea of Anna's spirit, if you imagine that she would ever yield one jot to you,” Mr. G.o.ddard at length retorted, his face crimson with rage.

Isabel Stewart arose from her chair and stood calm and cold before him.

She gazed with a steady, searching look into his eyes, then remarked, with slow emphasis:

”She will never be asked to yield to me, and I am spared the necessity of suing to either of you, for--that all-important certificate of marriage is already in my possession.”

As we know, Gerald G.o.ddard had feared this; he had even suggested the possibility to Anna, on the night of the ball at Wyoming, when she told him of the disappearance of the paper.

Nevertheless, the announcement of the fact at this time came upon him like a thunderbolt, for which he was utterly unprepared.

”Zounds!” he cried, starting to his feet, as if electrified, ”can you mean it? Then you stole it the night of the ball!”

”You are greatly mistaken, Mr. G.o.ddard; it was in my possession before the night of the ball,” quietly returned his companion.

”I do not believe it!” cried the man, excitedly.

”I will prove it to you if you desire,” Mrs. Stewart remarked.

”I defy you to do so.”

”Very well; I accept your gage. You will, however, have to excuse me for a few moments,” and, with these few words, the stately and graceful woman turned and disappeared within a chamber that opened from the room they were in.

It would be difficult to describe the conflict of emotions that raged in Gerald G.o.ddard's breast during her absence.

While he was almost beside himself with anger and chagrin, over the very precarious position in which he found himself, he was also tormented by intense disappointment and a sense of irritation to think he had so fatally marred his life by his heartless desertion of the beautiful woman who had just left him.

Anna was not to be compared with her; she was perhaps more brilliant and p.r.o.nounced in her style; but she lacked the charm of refinement and sweet graciousness that characterized Isabel; while, more than all else, he lamented the loss of the princely inheritance which had fallen to her, and which he would have shared if he had been true to her.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and then he was aroused from his wretched reflections by the opening of the chamber door near him, when his late housekeeper at Wyoming walked into the room.

CHAPTER XXIX.

”OUR WAYS PART HERE, NEVER TO CROSS AGAIN.”

Gerald G.o.ddard arose from his chair, and stared at the woman in unfeigned astonishment.

”Really, Mrs. Weld! this is an unexpected meeting--I had no thought of seeing you here, or even that you were acquainted with Mrs. Stewart,”

he remarked, while he searched his recent housekeeper's face with curious eyes.