me, I
_will_ be heard!"

"You have no claim! You shameless woman, you are married already. I know
the man's name. Arnold Brinkworth."

"Did Geoffrey Delamayn tell you that?"

"I decline to answer a woman who speaks of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn in that
familiar way."

Anne advanced a step nearer.

"Did Geoffrey Delamayn tell you that?" she repeated.

There was a light in her eyes, there was a ring in her voice, which
showed that she was roused at last. Mrs. Glenarm answered her, this
time.

"He did tell me."

"He lied!"

"He did _not!_ He knew. I believe _him._ I don't believe _you._"

"If he told you that I was any thing but a single woman--if he told
you that Arnold Brinkworth was married to any body but Miss Lundie of
Windygates--I say again he lied!"

"I say again--I believe _him,_ and not you."

"You believe I am Arnold Brinkworth's wife?"

"I am certain of it."

"You tell me that to my face?"

"I tell you to your face--you may have been Geoffrey Delamayn's
mistress; you are Arnold Brinkworth's wife."

At those words the long restrained anger leaped up in Anne--all the more
hotly for having been hitherto so steadily controlled. In one breathless
moment the whirlwind of her indignation swept away, not only all
remembrance of the purpose which had brought her to Swanhaven, but
all sense even of the unpardonable wrong which she had suffered at
Geoffrey's hands. If he had been there, at that moment, and had offered
to redeem his pledge, she would have consented to marry him, while Mrs.
Glenarm s eye was on her--no matter whether she destroyed herself in her
first cool moment afterward or not. The small sting had planted itself
at last in the great nature. The noblest woman is only a woman, after
all!

"I forbid your marriage to Geoffrey Delamayn! I insist on his performing
the promise he gave me, to make me his wife! I have got it here in his
own words, in his own writing. On his soul, he swears it to me--he will
redeem his pledge. His mistress, did you say? His wife, Mrs. Glenarm,
before the week is out!"

In those wild words she cast back the taunt--with the letter held in
triumph in her hand.

Daunted for the moment by the doubt now literally forced on her, that
Anne might really have the claim on Geoffrey which she advanced, Mrs.
Glenarm answered nevertheless with the obstinacy of a woman brought to
bay--with a resolution not to be convinced by conviction itself.

"I won't give him up!" she