"It the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill come always together, who would escape hanging?"
Sabrina turned from the doors. "And that, sister," she said with a bleak emphasis, "is all there is to it. Now you must make of it what you will."
Bernice felt as if she were choking on the rage that was
roaring like an inferno inside. "How can you… how can you dare to insult me so?" she cried, struggling for words. "How can you-"
"I can, because I have right on my side," Sabrina said simply. "You will no longer direct the servants, and you are to accept the presence of our niece without question." She went to stand beside her desk.
"Right!" Bernice exclaimed. Her voice rose. "After what you did?" She laughed bitterly. "When society knows, you will be completely ostracized. Your name will be destroyed. And their names and their future-''
"I am quite prepared to confront my fate," Sabrina said. Her voice was quiet, expressionless. "And I am prepared to allow the others concerned to meet their own. But if society learns of this, it will only be because you have recklessly spread it abroad." She reached down and picked up a letter opener in the shape of a dagger, turning it in her hand. "When you do that, Bernice, you will no longer have a home at Bishop's Keep. For the rest of your days, you will live in a rented flat, subsisting on your widow's pension."
Bernice stared at her sister. "You would not turn me out penniless!" Her throat felt raw, lacerated with the pain of pent-up fury.
"I shall," Sabrina replied, "if you force me to do so." Her face was a mask. Only her gray eyes held life, a suppressed, flashing energy-charged, it seemed to Bernice, with a malicious hatred. "It appears, sister," she added icily, "that we have reached an impasse. If you destroy me and mine, I shall destroy you, quite utterly."
The last words echoed in the silent room, in the empty hollow that had been Bernice's heart. Sabrina had gained the upper hand.
"It is the Irishwoman," Bernice muttered blackly. "She is the one who has turned you against me. Before she came-"
"Bernice!" Sabrina whirled around. "It is absurd to cast recriminations on anyone but yourself." Her voice vibrated,
only just in control. "Or on me. If I had not allowed you to-"
"Spare me your self-pity," Bernice cried, the taste of loathing acrid on her tongue. "When you feel the full brunt of society's censure, then you can blame yourself. And pity him, whose career you will have-''
Her face suffused with furious color, Sabrina raised the hand that held the dagger. Bernice flinched. But she was maddened with anger. She could not stop her words.
"— Whose career in the church you will have utterly ruined."
"No more," Sabrina cried, knuckles white around the hilt of the dagger, forearm quivering with murderous violence. "Get out of my sight, Bernice! And stay out, for I cannot promise that I will be able to control this arm!"
Bernice stared at her sister. She felt as if both she and Sabrina had been stripped to the skin and stood mortified in their nakedness-their fear, their anger, their hatred, all exposed to the world. Everything was coming apart. There was nothing to hold on to.
For the first time in her life, Bernice Ardleigh Jaggers was absolutely terrified.