"By God," cried the Earl, "this is intolerable; are we to exchange recriminations?" He moved towards her. "I have that on my mind makes you and your father and his damned money of no moment to me." The Countess rose, sweeping the flame-coloured domino to the floor. "Ah, Miss Boyle!" she said through her teeth. "She was at the ball to-night." "I will not endure this from you, madam." "That is monstrous amusing," cried the Countess, and her eyes flew wide. "Do you imagine that I do not know----" "And I also--I know, who wrote the paragraph in the _Gazette_." She was obviously startled, taken with a quick utter surprise; she stared at him as if she hoped to read some explanation of his words in his pale face. "Did you imagine," continued my lord, "that I could live a year in the same house with you and not be aware that you read my letters and set your servant to spy on me?" He smiled in a fashion that made her colour with fury. "What other was there with both the knowledge and the vulgarity to send what you sent to the paper? You deceive yourself, madam, if you think I do not know you." The Countess Lavinia stood silent; she had no words to meet the occasion. Only once before had she spoken directly with her husband, when he had brought her home to Lyndwood Holt, and then, as now, he had silenced her. Her dumb hatred of him rose and swelled in her heart to agony; she made a motion of her hand to her throat and then clutched at the pearls on her tight bodice. The Earl glanced away from her as if he found her not worth his attention. "It hath been too mean a thing to mention," he said; "but it was patent to me from the moment Sir Francis showed me the _Gazette_. It hath not done much mischief, madam, or caused any trouble I cannot right; Miss Boyle stands too high for malice to touch. Well, there is no more to say." She found voice enough to ask harshly: "Is this how you take it?" Of all things she had never expected this. The contemplation of his certain fury had made a point to her days; again and again she had said to herself, "I shall have stung him beyond bearing at last," and she had nerved herself to bear the outburst of his rage for the pleasure of seeing him brought by her means to bitter wrath; she had not supposed that he would discover of himself that she was the author of the paragraph, but she had intended at the climax, when he was on the eve of a duel with Sir Francis and Miss Boyle had fled from London, to say to him, "I did this--I!" The Earl moved again to the mantelshelf. "How did you imagine I would take it?" he asked quietly. "I reap what I sowed when I married Mr. Hilton's daughter." She gave a little gasp, and the string of pearls broke and came away in her hot hand. "A noble way you vindicate your gentle blood, my lord," she said in a voice faltering with passion. "I have been your convenience and your scorn."