"What am I to you, for the matter of that?" with a bitter laugh, "if they are nothing I am less than nothing. You deliberately flung me aside all because----Why, look here!" moving toward her in uncontrollable agitation, "say I had sinned above the Galileans--say that lie was true--say I had out-Heroded Herod in evil courses, still am I past the pale of forgiveness? Saint as you are, have you no pity for me? In all your histories of love and peace and perfection is there never a case of a poor devil of a sinner like me being taken back into grace--absolved--pardoned?"

"To rave like this is useless. There is no good to be got from it. You know what I think, what I believe. You deceived--wronged----Let me go, Cecil!"

"Before--before," repeats he, obstinately. "What that woman told you since, I swear to you, was a most d.a.m.ned lie."

"I refuse to go into it again."

She is deadly pale now. Her bloodless lips almost refuse to let the words go through them.

"You mean by that, that in spite of my oath you still cling to your belief that I am lying to you?"

His face is livid. There is something almost dangerous about it, but Lady Baltimore has come of too old and good a race to be frightened into submission. Raising one small, slender hand, she lays it upon his breast, and, with a little haughty upturning of her shapely head, pushes him from her.

"I have told you I refuse to go into it," says she, with superb self-control. "How long do you intend to keep me here? When may I be allowed to leave the room?"

There is distinct defiance in the clear glance she casts at him.

Baltimore draws a long breath, and then bursts into a strange laugh.

"Why, when you will," says he, shrugging his shoulders. He makes a graceful motion of his hand toward the door. "Shall I open it for you?

But a word still let me say--if you are not in too great a hurry!

Christianity, now, my fair saint, so far as ever I could hear or read, has been made up of mercy. Now, you are merciless! Would you mind letting me know how you reconcile one----"

"You perversely mistake me--I am no saint. I do not"--coldly--"profess to be one. I am no such earnest seeker after righteousness as you maliciously represent me. All I desire is honesty of purpose, and a decent sense of honor--honor that makes decency. That is all. For the rest, I am only a poor woman who loved once, and was--how many times deceived? That probably I shall never know."

Her sad, sad eyes, looking at him, grow suddenly full of tears.

"Isabel! My meeting with that woman--that time"--vehemently--"in town was accidental! I----It was the merest chance----"

"Don't!" says she, raising her hand, with such a painful repression of her voice as to render it almost a whisper; "I have told you it is useless. I have heard too much to believe anything now. I shall never, I think," very sadly, "believe in any one again. You have murdered faith in me. Tell this tale of yours to some one else--some one willing to believe--to"--with a terrible touch of scorn--"Lady Swansdown, for example."

"Why do you bring her into the discussion?" asks he, turning quickly to her. Has she heard anything? That scene in the garden that now seems to fill him with self-contempt. What a _betise_ it was! And what did it amount to? Nothing! Lady Swansdown, he is honestly convinced, cares as little for him as he for her. And at this moment it is borne in upon him that he would give the embraces of a thousand such as she for one kind glance from the woman before him.

"I merely mentioned her as a possible person who might listen to you,"

with a slight lifting of her shoulders. "A mere idle suggestion. You will pardon me saying that this has been an idle discussion altogether.

You began by denouncing my brother to me, and now----"

"You have ended by denouncing your husband to me! As idle a beginning as an end, surely. Still, to go back to Beauclerk. I persist in saying he has behaved scandalously in this affair. He has imperilled that poor child's good name."

"You can imperil names, too!" says she, turning almost fiercely on him.

"Lady Swansdown again, I suppose," says he, with a bored uplifting of his brows. "The old grievance is not sufficient, then; you must have a new one. I am afraid I must disappoint you. Lady Swansdown, I a.s.sure you, cares nothing at all for me, and I care just the same amount for her."

"Since when?"

"Since the world began--if you want a long date!"

"What a liar you are, Baltimore!" says his wife, turning to him with a sudden breaking out of all the pent-up pa.s.sion within her. Involuntarily her hands clench themselves. She is pale no longer. A swift, hot flush has dyed her cheeks. Like an outraged, insulted queen, she holds him a moment with her eyes, then sweeps out of the room.

CHAPTER XXVII.

'Since thou art not as these are, go thy ways; Thou hast no part in all my nights and days.

Lie still--sleep on--be glad. As such things be Thou couldst not watch with me."

Luncheon has gone off very pleasantly. Joyce, persuaded by Lady Baltimore, had gone down to it, feeling a little shy, and conscious of a growing headache. But everybody had been charming to her, and Baltimore, in especial, had been very careful in his manner of treating her, saying little nice things to her, and insisting on her sitting next to him, a seat hitherto Lady Swansdown's own.

The latter had taken this so perfectly, that one might be pardoned for thinking it had been arranged beforehand between her and her host. At all events Lady Swansdown was very sympathetic, and indeed everybody seemed bent on treating her as a heroine of the highest order.

Joyce herself felt dull--nerveless. Words did not seem to come easily to her. She was tired, she thought, and of course she was, having spent a sleepless night. One little matter gave her cause for thankfulness.

Dysart was absent from luncheon. He had gone on a long walking expedition, Lady Baltimore said, that would prevent his returning home until dinner hour--until quite 8 o'clock. Joyce told herself she was glad of this--though why she did not tell herself. At all events the news left her very silent.

But her silence was not noticed. It could not be, indeed, so great and so animated was the flow of Beauclerk's eloquence. Without addressing anybody in particular, he seemed to address everybody. He kept the whole table alive. He treated yesterday's adventure as a tremendously amusing affair, and invited everyone to look upon it as he did. He insisted on describing Miss Kavanagh and himself in the same light as he had described them earlier to his sister, as the modern Babes in the Wood, Mrs. Connolly being the Robin. He made several of the people who had dropped in to luncheon roar with laughter over his description of that excellent inn keeper. Her sayings--her appearance--her stern notions of morality that induced her to bring them home, "personally conducted"--the size of her waist--and her heart--and many other things.

He was extremely funny. The fact that his sister smiled only when she felt she must to avoid comment, and that his host refused to smile at all, and that Miss Kavanagh was evidently on thorns all the time did not for an instant damp his overflowing spirits.

It is now seven, o'clock; Miss Kavanagh, on her way upstairs to dress for dinner, suddenly remembering that there is a book in the library, left by her early in the afternoon on the central table, turns aside to fetch it.

She forgets, however, what she has come for when, having entered the room, she sees Dysart standing before the fire, staring apparently at nothing. To her chagrin, she is conscious that the unmistakable start she had made on seeing him is known to him.

"I didn't know you had returned," says she awkwardly, yet made a courageous effort to appear as natural as usual.

"No? I knew you had returned," says he slowly.

"It is very late to say good-morning," says she with a poor little attempt at a laugh, but still advancing toward him and holding out her hand.

"Too late!" replied he, ignoring the hand. Joyce, as if struck by some cruel blow, draws back a step or two.

"You are not tired, I hope?" asks Dysart courteously.

"Oh, no." She feels stifled; choked. A desire to get to the door, and escape--lose sight of him forever--is the one strong longing that possesses her; but to move requires strength, and she feels that her limbs are trembling beneath her.

"It was a long drive, however. And the storm was severe. I fear you must have suffered in some way."

"I have not suffered," says she, in a dull, emotionless way. Indeed, she hardly knows what she says, a repet.i.tion of his own words seems the easiest thing to bar, so she adopts it.

"No?"

There is a considerable pause, and then----

"No! It is true! It is I only who have suffered," says Dysart with an uncontrollable abandonment to the misery that is destroying him. "I alone."

"You mean something," says Joyce. It is by a terrible effort that she speaks. She feels thoroughly unnerved--unstrung. Conscious that the nervous shaking of her hands will betray her, she clasps them behind her tightly. "You meant something just now when you refused to take my hand.

But what? What?"