“Captain Desfrayne may be actuated by mean and cruel objects in pursuing me, whom he has always treated in so abominable a manner--his jealousy, his ill conduct, obliged me unwillingly to leave him, for I desired to do my duty as a wife, though I did not love him. You and he have, you say, listened to a story told by some man who asserts that--that--that I was--that I was married to him. Plainly, why do you and Captain Desfrayne lend yourselves to this infamous conspiracy? I do not intend to tamely submit to robbery and insult, I can assure you. Who is this man?” “He is Captain Desfrayne’s valet,” said Frank Amberley, who had not attempted even once to interrupt the long harangue with which he had been favored. “As I should have imagined,” said Madam Guiscardini, withering scorn in her look and voice, a disdainful smile on her lips. “This man, whom the world supposes to be a gentleman, because he wears the uniform of an officer in the service of the King of England, puts his servant forward to insult and harass me--will, perhaps, urge him to attack me for money. You come to ask me--what?” Frank Amberley, who had remained standing from the moment he entered the room until now, slightly stooped, and, leaning forward, gazed intently into the signora’s great, bold black eyes. For some instants she bore this searching look; then her guilty eyes sank, while the color flowed back to her pale face. Her hands clenched with suppressed fury, and it was with difficulty she refrained from giving way to a burst of rage. But she feared she might betray herself by a word inadvertently spoken, and so remained silent. “You know, Madam Guiscardini, that what I have asserted is perfectly true,” said the young man sternly. “You, the wife of the Italian, Leonardo Gilardoni, trapped my client into a marriage with you, believing yourself safe because you had abstracted the evidence of your first marriage. That evidence you did not dare to destroy--it still exists.” The signora raised her eyes, and looked at him in affright. “What evidence?” she asked. “The written register in the book belonging to the chapel in which your brother married you to Gilardoni.” “This is infamous. What do you hope by bullying me in this manner?” exclaimed Madam Guiscardini. “You asked what I wanted--why I had come. I will tell you: Before we seek for your brother, the priest--the Padre Josef--I wish to know what you have done with the registry-book?” His keenly practised eye caught a swift glance at hers, gleaming like an instantaneous flash. With a strange misgiving that she was entirely betrayed--that possibly Finette or some other servant had watched her, unseen, and reported her secret doings--she glanced for a second at a tall cabinet standing in a corner of the room, near the pianoforte--a curious old piece of eighteenth-century furniture, inlaid with paintings on enamel. Frank Amberley lowered his gaze, and appeared simply to wait for an answer.