"The lady that left the
bracelet was there with a gentleman."
Mary winced.
Then Bartley said, sternly, "Who was your companion?"
"I must not say."
"You will say one thing," said Bartley, "or I shall have no mercy on you.
Are you secretly married?"
Then a single word flashed across Mary's almost distracted
mind--SELF-SACRIFICE. She held her tongue.
"Can't you speak? Are you a wife?" He now began to speak so loud in his
anger that everybody heard it.
Mary crouched a little and worked her hands convulsively under the
torture, but she answered with such a doggedness that evidently she would
have let herself be cut to pieces sooner than said more.
"I--don't--know."
"You don't know?" roared Bartley.
Mary paused, and then, with iron doggedness, "I--don't--know."
This apparent insult to his common-sense drove Bartley almost mad. "You
have given these cursed Cliffords a triumph over me," he cried; "you have
brought shame to my door; but it shall never pass the threshold." Here
the Colonel uttered a contemptuous snort.
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