She
forgot for a moment the stern, dark face watching her so jealously, and
so hardening toward her as he saw how pale she grew, and heard her
exclamation of surprise when she first recognized the note, and
remembered that in turning over the contents of the ebony box she must
have dropped it upon the floor.
"Do you still deny all knowledge of Frank's presence in town?" Richard
asked, and his voice recalled Ethelyn from the long ago back to the
present time.
He was waiting for her answer; but Ethie had none to give. Her hot,
imperious temper was in the ascendant now. She was a prisoner for the
night; her own husband was the jailer, who she felt was unjust to her,
and she would make no explanations, at least not then. He might think
what he liked or draw any inference he pleased from her silence. And so
she made him no reply, except to crush into her pocket the paper which
she should have burned on that morning when, crouching on the
hearthstone at home, she destroyed all other traces of a past which
ought never to have been. He could not make her speak, and his words of
reproach might as well have been given to the winds as to that cold,
statue-like woman, who mechanically laid aside the fanciful costume in
which she was arrayed, doing everything with a deliberation and
coolness more exasperating to Richard than open defiance would have
been.
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