And so I had left her, feeling that doubtless she was right, and communicating her wishes on the subject to Lady Amabel Scott, who had several times expressed a desire to gain admittance to her widowed cousin. Judge, then, of our surprise, equal and unmitigated, when, as we sat in the drawing-room that evening, the door silently opened and Justina stood before us! If she had been the ghost of Sir Harry himself risen from the dead, she could hardly have given us a greater start. “Justina!” I exclaimed, but as she advanced toward us with her eyes riveted on Lady Amabel, I saw that something more than usual was the matter, and drew backward. Justina’s countenance was deadly pale; her dark hair, unbound from the night before, flowed over the white dressing-gown which she had worn all day; and stern and rigid she walked into the midst of our little circle, holding a packet of letters in her hand. “Amabel Scott,” she hissed rather than said as she fixed a look of perfect hatred on the beautiful face of her dead husband’s cousin, “I have detected you. You made me miserable whilst he was alive--you know it--with your bold looks and your forward manners and your shameless, open attentions; but it is my turn now, and before your husband I will tell you that--” “Hush, hush, Justina!” I exclaimed, fearful what revelation might not be coming next. “You are forgetting yourself; this is no time for such explanations. Remember what lies upstairs.” “Let her go on,” interposed Lady Amabel Scott, with wide-open, astonished eyes; “I am not afraid. I wish to hear of what she accuses me.” She had risen from her seat as soon as she understood the purport of the widow’s speech, and crossed over to her husband’s side; and knowing what I did of her, I was yet glad to see that Warden Scott threw his arm about her for encouragement and support. She may have been thoughtless and faulty, but she was so young, and _he_ was gone. Besides, no man can stand by calmly and see one woman pitted against another. “Of what do you accuse me?” demanded Lady Amabel, with heightened colour. “Of what do I accuse you?” almost screamed Justina. “Of perfidy, of treachery, toward him,” pointing to Mr. Warden Scott, “and toward me. I accuse you of attempting to win my dear husband’s affections from me--which you never did, thank God!--and of rendering this home as desolate as it was happy. But you failed--you failed!” “Where are your proofs?” said the other woman, quietly. “_There!_” exclaimed my niece, as she threw some four or five letters down upon the table--“there! I brought them for your husband to peruse. _He_ kept them; generous and good as he was, _he_ would have spared you an open exposure, but I have no such feelings in the matter. Are you to go from this house into another to pursue the same course of action, and perhaps with better success? No, not if I can prevent it!”