Burden tried to control her shaking voice.
"If--if it is the same young lady who was at Lady Wolfer's----I was her
maid, you remember----"
"I remember, you fool! Quick!"
"Then--then I know something. She's very pretty--and young, with dark
hair----"
Lady Luce sprang to her feet.
"You idiot! You drive me mad. I've not seen her. But if it be the
same----Well--well?"
"Then--then Lord Angleford is to be pitied. He has been
deceived--deceived cruelly," said Burden, in gasps.
Lady Luce caught her by the shoulders and glared into her quailing eyes.
"Listen to me, Burden: pull yourself together. Tell me what you
know--tell me this instant! Well? Sit there in that chair. Now!" She
pressed the shoulders she still held with the gesture of an Arab slave
driver. "Now, quick! Who is she? What do you know against her?"
In faltering accents, and yet with a kind of savage pleasure, Burden
spoke for some minutes; and as Lady Luce listened, the pallor of her
face gave place to a flush of fierce, malicious joy.
"Are you sure? You say you saw, you listened? Are you sure?" she
said--hissed, rather--at the end of Burden's story.
"I--I am quite sure," she responded. "I--I could swear to it. I was just
outside the library."
Lady Luce paced up and down with the gait of a tigress.
"If I could only be sure," she panted; "if I could only be sure! But you
may be mistaken. Wait!" Her hand fell upon Burden's shoulder again. "Go
downstairs, look at the people, and tell me if you see her there.
Quick!"
Burden, wincing under the savage pressure of her hand, rose, and stole
from the room.
In less than five minutes she was back.
"Well?" demanded Lady Luce, as Burden closed the door and leaned against
it.
"It--it is the same. I saw her," she said suddenly.
Lady Luce sank into a chair, and was silent and motionless for a
moment; then she sprang up and laughed--a hideous laugh for such perfect
lips.
"Get out my pale mauve silk. Dress me, quick! I am not going to leave
the house. I am going downstairs to make Miss Lorton's acquaintance!
Quick!"
Burden got out the exquisite dress. The flush which had risen to her
mistress' face was reflected in her own. This Miss Lorton had helped to
capture her beloved, her "martyred" Ted, and he was going to be avenged!