He burst out into a discordant laugh, on which, like a wounded snake, she dragged herself painfully along the floor until she reached his feet.
"Keep off," he whispered, in a hoarse voice; "keep off, you shameless creature!"
"Hear you!--hear you!" said Sir Rupert, in a tone of concentrated scorn. "I heard you twenty years ago. The law heard you; the world heard you. What can you say to me now that I did not hear then?"
"Pity you! You that had no pity on me! You that ruined my life--that blasted my name--that made my home desolate! Pity you! I am not an angel! I am a man."
The woman twisted her hands together, and burst out crying into floods of hot bitter tears that burned and seared her cheeks--those cheeks that burned with shame at the righteous scorn of the man who had trusted her and whom she had wronged.
"What are you doing here?" said Pethram, harshly. "Rise and answer me. Don't lie grovelling there with your crocodile tears."
At these cruel words she arose to her feet with an effort and leaned heavily against the wall, while her husband took his seat in stern anger, as if she were a criminal brought before him for sentence.
"Silence!" he said, sternly. "Do not dare to claim the child which you left so cruelly twenty years ago. Have you no shame?"
"Shame!" she replied bitterly. "Yes, I have shame. I know what shame is--twenty years of bitter, cruel shame. God of mercy, twenty years!"
"Twenty thousand years would not be too much for your sin."
"Are you so pure yourself that you can judge me so harshly?"
"I am not here to argue such a question," he said, coldly, with a cruel look in his eyes. "I want to know what you are doing here."
"I told her nothing," said Mrs. Belswin, vehemently. "So help me, Heaven! she knows nothing. I am her companion, her paid companion--nothing more."
"I am glad you have had the sense to spare my daughter the story of your shame. How did you obtain the situation?"
"It was advertised, and I got it through Dombrain."
"How could he? Do you think all the world knows the story of my folly?"
"Your folly!" he repeated, with deep scorn; "your sin you mean. Dombrain was a long time in New Zealand; he must have heard of the case."
"If he did he never saw me. He did not recognise me."