It's the last one I wrote to your wife imploring her to see you and speak with you. Here it comes, the devil knows how, into Thelma's hands.

She's quite in the dark about _your secret_, and fancies I wrote it on my own behalf! It looks like it too--looks exactly as if I were pleading for myself and breaking my heart over that detestible stage-fiend--by Jove! it's too horrible!" And he gave a gesture of loathing and contempt.

Neville heard him in utter bewilderment. "Not possible!" he muttered.

"Not possible--it can't be!"

"Can't be? It _is_!" shouted Philip. "And if you'd let me tell Thelma everything from the first, all this wouldn't have happened. And you ask me what you've done! _Done!_ You've parted me from the sweetest, dearest girl in the world!"

And throwing himself into a chair, he covered his face with his hand and a great uncontrollable sob broke from his lips.

Neville was in despair. Of course, it was his fault--he saw it all clearly. He painfully recalled all that had happened since that night at the Brilliant Theatre when with a sickening horror he had discovered Violet Vere to be no other than Violet Neville,--his own little violet!

. . . as he had once called her--his wife that he had lost and mourned as though she were some pure dead woman lying sweetly at rest in a quiet grave. He remembered Thelma's shuddering repugnance at the sight of her,--a repugnance which he himself had shared--and which made him shrink with fastidious aversion, from the idea of confiding to any one but Sir Philip, the miserable secret of his connection with her. Sir Philip had humored him in this fancy, little imagining that any mischief would come of it--and the reward of his kindly sympathy was this,--his name was compromised, his home desolate, and his wife estranged from him!

In the first pangs of the remorse and sorrow that filled his heart, Neville could gladly have gone out and drowned himself. Presently he began to think,--was there not some one else beside himself who might possibly be to blame for all this misery? For instance, who could have brought or sent that letter to Lady Errington? In her high station, she, so lofty, so pure, so far above the rest of her s.e.x, would have been the last person to make any inquiries about such a woman as Violet Vere. How had it all happened? He looked imploringly for some minutes at the dejected figure in the chair without daring to offer a word of consolation. Presently he ventured a remark--

"Sir Philip!" he stammered. "It will soon be all right,--her ladyship will come back immediately. I myself will explain--it's--it's only a misunderstanding . . ."

Errington moved in his chair impatiently, but said nothing. Only a misunderstanding! How many there are who can trace back broken friendships and severed loves to that one thing--"only a misunderstanding!" The tenderest relations are often the most delicate and subtle, and "trifles light as air" may scatter and utterly destroy the sensitive gossamer threads extending between one heart and another, as easily as a child's pa.s.sing foot destroys the spider's web woven on the dewy gra.s.s in the early mornings of spring.

Presently Sir Philip started up--his lashes were wet and his face was flushed.

"It's no good sitting here," he said, rapidly b.u.t.toning on his overcoat.

"I must go after her. Let all the business go to the devil! Write and say I won't stand for Middleborough--I resign in favor of the Liberal candidate. I'm off to Norway to-night."

"To Norway!" cried Neville. "Has she gone _there_? At this season--"

He broke off, for at that moment Britta entered, looking the picture of misery. Her face was pale and drawn--her eyelids red and swollen, and when she saw Sir Philip, she gave him a glance of the most despairing reproach and indignation. He sprang up to her.

"Any news?" he demanded.

Britta shook her head mournfully, the tears beginning to roll again down her cheeks.

"Oh, if I'd only thought!" she sobbed, "if I'd only known what the dear Froken meant to do when she said good-bye to me last night, I could have prevented her going--I could--I would have told her all I know--and she would have stayed to see you! Oh, Sir Philip, if you had only been here, that wicked, wicked Lady Winsleigh _couldn't_ have driven her away!"

At this name such a fury filled Philip's heart that he could barely control himself. He breathed quickly and heavily.

"What of her?" he demanded in a low, suffocated voice. "What has Lady Winsleigh to do with it, Britta?"

"Everything!" cried Britta, though, as she glanced at his set, stern face and paling lips, she began to feel a little frightened. "She has always hated the Froken, and been jealous of her--always! Her own maid, Louise, will tell you so--Lord Winsleigh's man, Briggs, will tell you so! They've listened at the doors, and they know all about it!" Britta made this statement with the most childlike candor. "And they've heard all sorts of wicked things--Lady Winsleigh was always talking to Sir Francis Lennox about the Froken,--and now they've made her believe you do not care for her any more--they've been trying to make her believe everything bad of you for ever so many months--" she paused, terrified at Sir Philip's increasing pallor.

"Go on, Britta," he said quietly, though his voice sounded strange to himself. Britta gathered up all her remaining stock of courage.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" she continued desperately, "I _don't_ understand London people at all, and I never shall understand them. Everybody seems to want to be wicked! Briggs says that Lady Winsleigh was fond of _you_, Sir Philip,--then, that she was fond of Sir Francis Lennox,--and yet she has a husband of her own all the time! It is so very strange!" And the little maiden's perplexity appeared to border on distraction. "They would think such a woman quite mad in Norway! But what is worse than anything is that you--you, Sir Philip,--oh! I _won't_ believe it," and she stamped her foot pa.s.sionately, "I _can't_ believe it! . . . and yet everybody says that you go to see a dreadful, painted dancing woman at the theatre, and that you like her better than the Froken,--it _isn't_ true, is it?" Here she peered anxiously at her master--but he was absolutely silent. Neville made as though he would speak, but a gesture from Sir Philip's hand restrained him. Britta went on rather dispiritedly, "Anyhow, Briggs has just told me that only yesterday Lady Winsleigh went all by herself to see this actress, and that she got some letter there which she brought to the Froken--" she recoiled suddenly with a little scream. "Oh, Sir Philip!--where are you going?"

Errington's hand came down on her shoulder, as he twisted her lightly out of his path and strode to the door.

"Sir Philip--Sir Philip!" cried Neville anxiously, hastening after him.

"Think for a moment; don't do anything rash!" Philip wrung his hand convulsively. "Rash! My good fellow, it's a _woman_ who has slandered me--what _can_ I do? Her s.e.x protects her!" He gave a short, furious laugh. "But--by G.o.d!--were she a man I'd shoot her dead!"

And with these words, and his eyes blazing with wrath, he left the room.

Neville and Britta confronted each other in vague alarm.

"Where will he go?" half whispered Britta.

"To Winsleigh House, I suppose," answered Neville in the same low tone.

Just then the hall door shut with a loud bang, that echoed through the silent house.

"He's gone!" and as Neville said this he sighed and looked dubiously at his companion. "How do you know all this about Lady Winsleigh, Britta?

It may not be true--it's only servants' gossip."

"Only servants' gossip!" exclaimed Britta. "And is that nothing? Why, in these grand houses like Lord Winsleigh's, the servants know everything!

Briggs makes it his business to listen at the doors--he says it's a part of his duty. And Louise opens all her mistress's letters--she says she owes it to her own respectability to know what sort of a lady it is she serves. And she's going to leave, because she says her ladyship _isn't_ respectable! There! what do you think of that! And Sir Philip will find out a great deal more than even _I_ have told him--but oh! I _can't_ understand about that actress!" And she shook her head despairingly.

"Britta," said Neville suddenly, "That actress is my wife!"

Britta started,--and her round eyes opened wide.

"Your wife, Mr. Neville?" she exclaimed.

Neville took off his spectacles and polished them nervously.

"Yes, Britta--my wife!"

She looked at him in amazed silence. Neville went on rubbing his gla.s.ses, and continued in rather dreamy, tremulous accents--

"Yes--I lost her years ago--I thought she was dead. But I found her--on the stage of the Brilliant Theatre. I--I never expected--_that_! I would rather she had died!" He paused and went on softly, "When I married her, Britta, she was such a dear little girl,--so bright and pretty!--and I--I fancied she was fond of me! Yes, I did,--of course, I was foolish--I've always been foolish, I think. And when--when I saw her on that stage I felt as if some one had struck me a hard blow--it seems as if I'd been stunned ever since. And though she knows I'm in London, she won't see me, Britta,--she won't let me speak to her even for a moment!

It's very hard! Sir Philip has tried his best to persuade her to see me--he has talked to her and written to her about me; and that's not all,--he has even tried to make her come back to me--but it's all no use--and--and that's how all the mischief has arisen--do you see?"

Britta gazed at him still, with sympathy written on every line of her face,--but a great load had been lifted from her mind by his words--she began to understand everything.

"I'm so sorry for you, Mr. Neville!" she said. "But why didn't you tell all this to the Froken?"

"I _couldn't_!" murmured Neville desperately. "She was there that night at the Brilliant,--and if you had seen how she looked when she saw--my wife--appeared on the stage! So pained, so sorry, so ashamed! and she wanted to leave the theatre at once. Of course, I ought to have told her,--I wish I had--but--somehow, I never could." He paused again. "It's all my stupidity, of course, Sir Philip is quite blameless--he has been the kindest, the best of friends to me--" his voice trembled more and more, and he could not go on. There was a silence of some minutes, during which Britta appeared absorbed in meditation, and Neville furtively wiped his eyes.

Presently he spoke again more cheerfully. "It'll soon be all right again, Britta!" and he nodded encouragingly. "Sir Philip says her ladyship has gone home to Norway, and he means to follow her to-night."

Britta nodded gravely, but heaved a deep sigh.

"And I posted her letter to her father!" she half murmured. "Oh, if I had only thought or guessed why it was written!"

"Isn't it rather a bad time of the year for Norway?" pursued Neville.

"Why, there must be snow and darkness--"

"Snow and darkness at the Altenfjord!" suddenly cried Britta, catching at his words. "That's exactly what she said to me the other evening! Oh dear! I never thought of it--I never remembered it was the dark season!"

She clasped her hands in dismay. "There is no sun at the Altenfjord now--it is like night--and the cold is bitter. And she is not strong--not strong enough to travel--and there's the North Sea to cross--oh, Mr. Neville," and she broke out sobbing afresh. "The journey will kill her,--I know it will! my poor, poor darling! I must go after her--I'll go with Sir Philip--I _won't_ be left behind!"

"Hush, hush, Britta!" said Neville kindly, patting her shoulder. "Don't cry--don't cry!"

But he was very near crying himself, poor man, so shaken was he by the events of the morning. And he could not help admitting to himself the possibility that so long and trying a journey for Thelma in her present condition of health meant little else than serious illness--perhaps death. The only comfort he could suggest to the disconsolate Britta was, that at that time of year it was very probable there would be no steamer running to Christiansund or Bergen, and in that case Thelma would be unable to leave England, and would, therefore, be overtaken by Sir Philip at Hull.