All through that day Lauraine keeps in her own room. Sir Francis
does not approach her. He is quite confident that his threat has
taken effect--that she will never proceed to extremities. He has not
seen Lady Jean to tell her of his wife's discovery, and he dares not
send her another message. When he goes down to dinner he finds his
wife in the drawing-room. She looks very pale, and is dressed in
black velvet. Lady Etwynde is beside her, and Colonel Carlisle is
standing near.
Sir Francis has scarcely entered the room when Lady Jean follows.
She and Lauraine have not met that day. She walks up to her hostess,
extending her hand.
Lauraine draws her slender figure up to its full height, and, with a
cold bow, turns aside to speak to Colonel Carlisle. For an instant
Lady Jean looks at her as if stunned. Then the blood rushes in a
torrent to her face and neck. She knows the meaning of such an
action only too well. Dinner is announced now, and Sir Francis, who
has also observed this act of his wife's, offers his arm to Lady
Jean. Colonel Carlisle does the same to Lauraine, and Lady Etwynde
follows.
The dinner is a dreary affair. Each of them feels a scene is
impending, and Colonel Carlisle, who has some inkling of how matters
stand, is very uncomfortable. He resolves that on the morrow Etwynde
and himself must quit Falcon's Chase, sorry as he is for, and much as
he admires, Lauraine. The ladies rise to leave the table, and pass
out of the room. Before entering the drawing-room Lady Jean bends
down to Lauraine.
"Will you be good enough to explain the meaning of your strange
behaviour?" she says.
Lauraine turns and faces her unflinchingly. "You must excuse me from
entering upon any discussion with you," she says haughtily. "You
will find a note in your own apartment that will fully explain
everything--not that I fancy such explanation is needed."
Lady Jean's handsome, sparkling face changes to a dull, ashy grey.
She to be insulted thus, to her face, and by a woman whom she
despises and hates as a rival! Her teeth clench like a vice. She is
too wise to bandy words; she only turns and walks straight to her own
suite of rooms, and there sees the letter spoken of. Tearing it open
like a fury, she reads the few curt lines in which Lauraine states
that circumstances render it advisable her visit should come to an
end, and refers her, for any explanation she may deem necessary, to
Sir Francis.
To say that Lady Jean is furious would but ill convey an idea of the
tempest of rage, hatred, and spite aroused in her heart by the
knowledge that she is discovered.
"How could she have found out, and so suddenly?" she mutters to
herself. "He had no letters of mine to leave about. I was never
such a fool as to write to him, and to-day she has been shut up in
her rooms, and I have not met Frank. Ah, the library--I forgot that.
Good heavens! could she have overheard?"
She trembles with mingled rage and shame. If Lauraine had stood
before her now she could have killed her without a regret, crushed
out her youth and beauty with ruthless hands and rejoicing heart; but
Lauraine is not there, and Lauraine has all the triumph, and she all
the shame and defeat. Like a wounded tigress she paces to and fro
her room, a thousand schemes and projects flashing through her brain,
and all the fierceness and savagery of her nature roused into an
insensate, furious longing to revenge this insult, as she terms it,
upon the woman who has dealt it to her.
And at this moment, and while she is in this mood, Sir Francis enters.
Lady Jean turns upon him like a beautiful fury. "So--you have been
fool enough to let her find out," she says, in a low, choked voice.
"Read that."
He glances over his wife's letter. He is enraged also. He had not
thought she would have courage to act like this. "By Heaven! she
shall suffer for it!" he mutters savagely. "She has dared to defy
me, after all!"
"Defy you?" echoes Lady Jean. "Did you know then?"
"Certainly; I knew since the morning," he answers. "She was in the
library--she heard us."
"Did I not tell you, you were an imbecile," screams Lady Jean, "to
send me a message--to ask me to come to that room; and now--now--
Great Heaven! what am I to do? I am ruined, and all through your
idiocy?"
A woman always turns round on a man when there is a question of
inconvenience to herself. Sir Francis stands there sullen and
raging, but he is equally at a loss what to counsel. "I am master
here," he says presently. "You shall not go."
Lady Jean laughs in his face. "Master here?--oh, no doubt! You
should have exercised your mastership in time, then; now it is too
late. Your wife and I cannot remain under the same roof. Why, do
you suppose that for a single moment I should stay to put up with her
insults? Are you really such a fool? No; it is good-bye to you both
from to-night, only don't let her _dare_ to breathe a word of this to
the world, or it will be the very worst day of her life--that I
swear!"
"Good-bye!--what do you mean?" says sir Francis stupidly. "Do you
think I am going to give you up for that puling, white-faced piece of
virtue who calls herself my wife? By Heaven, no!"
"You seem to forget that you were mad to have that same puling,
white-faced nonentity for your wife once upon a time!" sneers Lady
Jean. "You bought your toy, and now must keep it. I leave your roof
to-morrow, and never again do we two meet, unless----"
She pauses meaningly. He seizes her by the arm.
"Don't drive me desperate. You know I cannot give you up. You shall
not--must not go. I have a hold on Lauraine. She is afraid. There
is all that about--Keith."
Lady Jean shakes off his hand and laughs mockingly. "About Keith!
Pshaw! They were too wise for us, _mon ami_. Don't fancy you can do
anything there. Of course they were in love--every one knows that;
but I doubt if you have a handle for a 'case,' if that is what you
mean. And if Lauraine were afraid of you, would she have
written--this?"
She stands before him--that letter in her hand, and all that is worst
in her whole nature roused and stung by the justice that she deems an
insult. Sir Francis is quite at a loss. That Lauraine has so coolly
disregarded his threats seems to augur her own fearlessness and her
own innocence. He feels an involuntary respect for her despite his
anger and the fury of baffled schemes. It had never occurred to him
that she would be brave enough to act thus. She has openly defied
him, and that defiance rouses in him a longing for vengeance--a
hatred of the purity of principle that has been tempted and yet stood
firm--that in the weakness of a woman's nature had been strong as
never was his manhood; that confronts him now unshamed and undaunted,
and ready to bear the cost of the most terrible vengeance that could
present itself to a woman of Lauraine's nature.
"Would she?" persists Lady Jean, enraged at his silence.
"Afraid!--she is fearless enough, trust her. She has been too clever
for us both, and there remains nothing for it but to make the best of
it. I will have no scene, no scandal. I leave your house to-morrow,
and never again do I set foot in it, or receive you."
"And you think I will suffer this?" cries Sir Francis. "That I am
going to part from a woman I love for the sake of one I hate?"
"I think you cannot help yourself," answers Lady Jean coolly. "I
mean what I have said. Now--go. I don't want to create further
scandal, and your presence here at this time is somewhat singular, to
say the least."
"Jean, do not drive me mad!" cried Sir Francis desperately. "You are
clever, keen of wit. Surely you can devise some plan by which we can
defeat her? It is humiliating, unbearable to be baffled like this."
"She has seen through our scheme; she is prepared," scoffs Lady Jean.
"Don't praise me for keen wits or cleverness, _mon ami_; you can
admire them more safely as exemplified by your wife! Now--will you
go?"
"Not unless you tell me when I am to see you again."
"Never, never, never!" almost screams Lady Jean. "Is that enough?
_Never again_, I swear, unless your wife is--to all intents and
appearances--what she has deemed me! As that will never be, I think
you must resign yourself as philosophically as possible to an eternal
parting."
"How heartless you are!" cries Sir Francis. "You cannot mean it. We
might meet sometimes. There is no kind of----"
"Oh, fool--dolt!" cries Lady Jean, in a fury. "Have I not said
enough? It is to you I owe this insult. You can pay the penalty of
it. You have nothing to do now but put up with your bargain,
or--wait for freedom!"
"Freedom," he mutters, vaguely and stupidly. "Do you mean that I
should try for a divorce?"
She opens the door and pushes him aside. "I have said all that is
necessary. It is for you to act!"
"Act," he says. For a moment he hesitates, then goes forward and
firmly closes the door. "I will _not_ go till I have said my say. I
warned Lauraine that if she did this I would proceed to extremities.
I shall do so. She has defied me for the first time in her life.
Well, she shall suffer for it. If you leave my roof she leaves it
too. She has chosen to insult you; let her have her share of the
disgrace."
Lady Jean looks at him as if bewildered.
"I think you know very well what I mean," he says gloomily. "You
were the first to counsel it."
"But the scandal, the disgrace," cries Lady Jean hurriedly. "And
then all this will leak out, and it will look like a trumped-up case,
done to shield yourself. And my name---- No, no, I cannot have it.
She is right. Let her have her triumph; it won't last long. There
are other ways to punish her besides this. Leave it to me. I must
be calm. I must think. No; _that_ idea is ridiculous. You may drag
her name through the dirt, but you drag your own also, and she can
always bring up--this. And, though I hate her, I know she is a good
woman. She is cold; that is her safeguard, for she never loved you.
But all the same she will not forfeit her own self-respect. It is
only another sort of pride, but it is _safe_."
"And yet you always said--" begins Sir Francis.
"Said," and she laughs her old mocking laugh. "Of course I _said_,
of course I say it still; but then proofs are different. She loves
Keith Athelstone, and he loves her; and you--love me. It is a
triangle that you can't make into a square. She has the best of it
now. Let her alone, and let her triumph. It may be my turn next."
Infatuated as Sir Francis is, something in the cold, measured hatred
of this woman's last words strikes upon him with a chill almost of
fear. He would rather have seen her furious, violent, tempestuous,
than as she looked now. She was not the sort of woman to care for a
"waiting race," and he knew some deeper purpose underlaid her words.
She turns on him suddenly again, and stamps her foot. "_Will_ you
go? Do you wish to disgrace me publicly? Have I not suffered enough
at your hands?"
"But you will write; you will tell me where you are?" he implores.
"Yes--yes; I will write. Only go. I must be alone; I must think.
And to-morrow I leave. Arrange all that." He leaves her then, and
Lady Jean rings her bell and bids her maid pack immediately; she has
received news that necessitates her return to Paris.
Early next morning she leaves the Chase.
Her hostess does not appear, or send any message of farewell. Sir
Francis drives his guest away to the station. He has not seen or
spoken to his wife.
"You have triumphed," says Lady Etwynde, standing by Lauraine's side,
and watching the carriage as it disappears down the great oak avenue.
"Triumphed?" Lauraine sighs heavily as she turns her aching eyes
away from the dark forest glades that stretch for miles around. "It
is a poor triumph, Etwynde, and laden with bitter memories, and
weighted with many fears. Something tells me that I shall suffer for
this before long." And Lady Etwynde echoes that fear in her own
heart, though now she speaks all brave and cheering words that her
tender love can frame.
"How will it end?" she thinks despairingly. "How will it end?"
Perhaps it was well that she could not tell at that hour, in that
time.