Presently, however, they entered--Mrs. MacDonald looking very much embarrassed, Faustina pale as death. Lord Vincent received them with grave politeness, and they all sat down to the table.

It was then Lord Vincent said:

"Mrs. MacDonald, Lady Vincent has this morning left this house upon which she has brought so much dishonor. It is also necessary for me to go to London to take measures for the dissolution of my marriage.

I am, therefore, about to ask of you a great favor."

"Ask any you please, my lord. I am very anxious to be of service to you in this awful crisis. And I will gladly do all in my power to help you," replied this very complaisant lady.

"I thank you, madam. I thank you very much. The favor I had to ask of you is this--that you will kindly remain here with Mrs. Dugald, until some plan is formed for her future residence."

"Surely, my lord, I will remain with great pleasure," answered this needy lady, who was only too glad to leave for a season the straitened home of her married sister, and take up her abode in this plentiful establishment.

"Again I thank you, madam; thank you cordially on the part of my widowed sister as well as on my own part," said the viscount courteously.

And this point being settled, the party dispersed.

Mrs. MacDonald retired to her own apartments to write a note to her sister, requesting that her effects might be forwarded to Castle Cragg.

Mrs. Dugald went to her boudoir to await there in feverish impatience the arrival of the viscount.

He did not keep her long in suspense; he soon entered, locked the door behind him, and seated himself beside her.

"She is gone--really gone?" whispered Faustina, in a low, eager, breathless voice.

"Yes, my angel; you heard me say so."

"Really and truly gone?"

"Really and truly."

"Oh, I am so glad! And her servants? Ah, I always hated those blacks! She has not left them behind?"

"Certainly not," answered the viscount evasively.

"Ah, what a relief! The house is well rid of them."

"It is, indeed, my love."

"But--but--but--the dead body?" whispered the woman in a husky voice, while her eyes dilated with terror.

"It is gone."

"Where? how?"

"I tied a heavy weight to its feet and sunk it in the depths of the sea," replied the viscount, who felt no scruples in deceiving anyone, least of all his accomplice in crime.

And this shows the utter falsity of the absurd proverb that asserts "there is honor among thieves." There can be no honor and no confidence in any league wherein the bond is guilt.

Lord Vincent was completely under the influence of Mrs. Dugald, whom he worshiped with a fatal passion--a passion the more violent and enduring because she continually stimulated without ever satisfying it. Up to this time she had never once permitted the viscount to kiss her. Thus he was her slave; but, like all slaves, he deceived his tyrant. He had deceived Mrs. Dugald from the first; he habitually deceived her.

In this instance he persuaded her that old Katie died under the influence of the chloroform that she had helped to administer on that fatal night when the old negress had been discovered eavesdropping behind the curtain in Mrs. Dugald's apartments.

What his motive could have been for this deception it would be difficult to say; perhaps it was for the purpose of gaining some power over her; perhaps it was from the pleasure of torturing her and seeing her terrors--for his passion for the woman was by no means that pure love which seeks first of all the good of its object; and, finally, perhaps it was from the mere habit of duplicity.

However that might be, he had persuaded her that Katie was dead, dead from the effects of the chloroform they had forced her to take.

And now that he had really committed a felony by selling the three negroes to a West Indian smuggler, he was not inclined to confess the truth. For not upon any account would he have confided to his companion in guilt the secret of a criminal transaction in which she had not also been implicated. He could not have trusted her so far as to place his liberty in her keeping. Therefore he preferred she should believe Katie's body had been sunk in the depths of the sea; and that Sally and Jim had accompanied their lady in her departure from the castle. It is true, the household servants might soon disabuse her mind of the mistake that the lady's maid and footman had gone with their mistress. But if they should do so, the viscount knew he could easily plead ignorance as to the fact; and say that all he knew was, she had not left them at the castle.

Mrs. Dugald listened to his account of the disposition of old Katie's body with deep delight. She clapped her little hands in her usual silly manner and exclaimed eagerly:

"That is good; oh, that is good! But are you sure it will stay down there? Great Heaven, if it should rise against us!"

"There is no danger, love, no danger."

"We should all be guillotined!" she repeated for the twentieth time since that night. And she shuddered through all her frame.

"Hanged, my dearest, not guillotined; hanged by the neck till we are dead," said the viscount, smiling.

"Ah, but you look like Mephistopheles when you say that!" she shrieked, covering her face with her hands.

"But there is no danger, none at all, I assure you. And now, my angel, I must leave you; I ordered the brougham to be at the door at twelve precisely to take me to Banff to meet the Aberdeen coach. And I have some preparations to make. Come down into the drawing room and wait to take leave of me, that is a dear."

"Oh, yes, yes! but before you go, promise me! You will write every day?"

"Every day, my angel," said the viscount, bowing over her hand, before he withdrew from the room.

His preparations were soon made. Old Cuthbert performed the duties of valet. And punctually at twelve o'clock the viscount took leave of his evil demon and her chaperon and departed for Banff, where he took the coach to Aberdeen, at which place he arrived in time to catch the night train up to London.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE COUNTESS OF HURSTMONCEUX.

The beauteous woe that charms like faded light, The cheek so pure that knows no youthful bloom, Well suiteth her dark brow and forehead white, And in the sad endurance of her eye Is all that love believes of woman's majesty.

--_Elliott_.

In the meantime Lady Vincent reached Banff. She drove at once to the principal hotel, where she engaged a room into which her luggage was carried. With a gratuity to the coachman who had driven her she dismissed the carriage, which returned immediately to the castle.

Then she ordered a fly and drove to the police station--at that time a mean little stone edifice, exceedingly repulsive without and excessively filthy within.

A crowd of disreputable-looking ragamuffins of both sexes and all ages obstructed the entrance. Surely it was a revolting scene to one of Lady Vincent's fastidious nature and refined habits. But she did not shrink from her duty. She made her way through this disgusting assemblage, and found just within the door a policeman, to whom she said:

"I wish, if you please, to see your inspector."