e tried to clasp him, but he held her
sternly off.

"One question more: You knew this secret before you married me?"

"I did."

"For how long?"

"For a year."

"And that picture the American showed you is a picture you know."

She looked up at him, a wild startled light in her great gray eyes.

"How do you know that?"

"I am answered," he said. "I see I am right. Once more, Lady
Kingsland," his voice cold and clear, "you refuse to tell me?"

"I must. Oh, Everard, for pity's sake, trust me! I can not tell
you--I dare not!"

"Enough, madame! Your accomplice shall!"

He turned to go. She made a step between him and the door.

"What are you going to do? Tell me, for I will know!"

"I am going to the man who shares your guilty secret, madame; and, by
the Heaven above us, I'll have the truth out of him if I have to tear
it from his throat! Out of my way, before I forget you are a woman and
strike you down at my feet!"

She staggered back, with a low cry, as if he had struck her indeed. He
strode past, his eyes flashing, his face livid with jealous rage,
straight to the picture-gallery.

A door at the opposite side of the corridor stood ajar. Sybilla
Silver's listening cars heard the last fierce words, Sybilla Silver's
glittering black eyes saw that last passionate gesture of repulsion.
She saw Harriet, Lady Kingsland--the bride of a month--sink down on the
oaken floor, quivering in anguish from head to foot; and her tall form
seemed to tower and dilate with diabolical delight.

"Not one year," she cried to her exultant heart--"not one month will I
have to wait for my revenge! Lie there, poor fool! and suffer and die,
for what I care, while I go and prevent your madly jealous husband from
braining my precious fiance. There is to be blood on the hands and the
brand of Cain on the brow of the last of the Kingslands, or my oath
will not be kept; but it must not be the ignoble blood of George
Washington Parmalee!"

CHAPTER XX.

MR. PARMALEE SWEARS VENGEANCE.

Sir Everard strode straight to the picture-gallery, his face pale, his
eyes flashing, his hands clinched.

His step rang like steel along the polished oaken floor, and there was
an ominous compression of his thin lips that might have warned Mr.
Parmalee of the storm to come. But Mr. Parmalee was squinting through
his apparatus at a grim, old warrior on the wall, and only just glanced
up to nod recognition.

"Morning, Sir Everard