The other shook her head with a significant gesture. "He tells me
nothing; he tells no one but Tony, and Tony tells me nothing; but I saw
them talking together to-night, and he was very angry. I overheard some
words. I heard him say he would see your father to-night and make him
sorry he had not done as he agreed, and he showed Tony a little stiletto
which he carries with him, and then he laughed."
Kate shuddered slightly. "Who is Tony?" she asked.
The woman smiled with another gesture. "Tony is--Tony; that is all I
know. He and my husband know each other."
A servant appeared; Kate ordered her own carriage brought to the door at
once. Then, turning on a sudden impulse to the stranger, she said,-"Will you come with me? Or are you afraid of him--afraid to have him
know you warned me?"
The woman laughed bitterly. "I feared him once," she said; "but I fear
him no longer; he fears me now. Yes, I will go with you."
"Then wait here; I will be ready in a moment."
At twenty minutes of eight Kate and the stranger passed down the hall
together--the woman veiled, Kate attired in a trim walking suit. The
latter stopped to look in at the sitting-room door.
"Aunt Marcia, Mr. Britton said he would be out but a few minutes. When
he comes in please tell him I want to see him at papa's office; my
carriage will be waiting for him here."
Her aunt looked her surprise, but she knew Kate to be enough like her
father that it was useless to ask an explanation where she herself made
none.
Once seated in the carriage and driving rapidly down the street Kate
laid her hand on the arm of her strange companion.
"Señora," she said, "you say you are my friend; were you my friend the
first time you came to the house? If not then, why are you now?"
"No, I was not your friend;" for the first time there was a ring of
passion in her voice; "I hated you, for I thought he loved you--that you
had stolen his heart and made him forget me. I travelled many miles. I
vowed to kill you both before you should marry him. Then I found he
could not marry you while I was his wife; he had told me our marriage
was void here because performed in another country. I found he had told
me wrong, and I told him unless he came with me I would go to the church
and tell them there I was his wife."
"And he went away with you?" Kate questioned.
"Yes, and he gave me money, and then he told me----" The woman
hesitated.