Miller's, where she was to be the
prominent one, and calculating her strength to stem the tide of wonder
and conjecture as to her absence which was sure to follow. She could not
meet it, she decided; she must go, at all hazards, even if, to achieve
her purpose, she made some concessions to the man who had denounced her
so harshly, and used such language as is not easily forgotten.
"Richard," she began, and her eyes had a strange glittering light in
them, "with regard to the past I shall say nothing now, but that Frank
was here in Camden I had not the slightest knowledge till I heard it
from you. Believe me, Richard, and let me go. My absence will seem very
strange, and cause a great deal of remark. Another time I may explain
what would best have been explained before."
The light in her eyes was softer now, and her voice full of entreaty;
for Ethie felt almost as if pleading for her life. But she might as well
have talked to the wall for any good results it produced. Richard was
moved from his lofty height of wrath and vindictiveness, but he did not
believe her. How could he, with the fatal note in his hand, and the
memory of the degrading epithet it contained, and which Ethie, too, had
used against him, still ringing in his ears? The virgin queen of England
was never more stony and inexorable with regard to the unfortunate Mary
than was Richard toward his wife, and the expression of his face froze
all the better emotions rising in Ethie's heart, as she felt that in a
measure she was reaping a just retribution for her long deception.
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