Christabel clasped her hands over her face, and drew back with an involuntary recoil, as if all the horror of that dreadful scene were being at this moment enacted before her eyes. Never had the thought of Angus Hamleigh's fate been out of her mind in all the year that was ended to-day--this day--the anniversary of his death. The image of that deed had been ever before her mental vision, beckoning her and guiding her along the pathway of revenge--a lurid light. "You murdered him," she said, in low, steadfast tones. "You brought him to this house with evil intent--yes, with your mind full of hatred and malice towards him. You acted the traitor's base, hypocritical part, smiling at him and pretending friendship, while in your soul you meant murder. And then, under this pitiful mockery of a duel--a duel with a man who had never injured you, who had no resentment against you--a duel upon the shallowest, most preposterous pretence--you kill your friend and your guest--you kill him in a lonely place, with none of the safeguards of ordinary duelling; and you have not the manhood to stand up before your fellow-men, and say, 'I did it.'" "Shall I go and tell them now?" asked Leonard, his white lips tremulous with impotent rage. "They would hang me, most likely. Perhaps that is what you want." "No, I never wanted that," answered Christabel. "For our boy's sake, for the honour of your dead mother's name, I would have saved you from a shameful death. But I wanted your life--a life for a life. That is why I tried to provoke your jealousy--why I planned that scene with the Baron yesterday. I knew that in a duel between you and him the chances were all in his favour. I had seen and heard of his skill. You fell easily into the trap I laid for you. I was behind the bushes when you challenged de Cazalet." "It was a plot then. You had been plotting my death all that time. Your songs and dances, and games and folly, all meant the same thing." "Yes, I plotted your death as you did Angus Hamleigh's," answered Christabel, slowly, deliberately, with steady eyes fixed on her husband's face; "only I relented at the eleventh hour. You did not." Leonard stared at her in dumb amazement. This new aspect of his wife's character paralyzed his thinking powers, which had never been vigorous. He felt as if, in the midst of a smooth summer sea, he had found himself suddenly face to face with that huge wave known on this wild northern coast, which, generated by some mysterious power in the wide Atlantic, rolls on its deadly course in overwhelming might; engulfing many a craft which but a minute before was riding gaily on a summer sea.