There was nothing that he regretted. He could not even feel that he was deserting Cicely. Before very long she would be married to Pierce Trelawny and then she, too, would be free.
As he thought of her, the girl herself burst into his room. Her eyes were tear-stained, and her fair hair was dishevelled. She stood still, breathing hard and staring at Mostyn, who was now struggling with the straps of his dressing-case.
"I've told them what I think of them!" she panted, following the train of her original thought. "It was Charles who gave you away, Mostyn. He went straight up to father and told him that you were at the Derby—the sneak!"
"It didn't matter," Mostyn said, glancing over his shoulder; "the result would have been just the same."
"What are you doing, Mostyn?" Her eyes—they were gentle eyes of china-blue—were round with horror. "Father is still in his study. He hasn't come out, though the dressing-gong has sounded. I heard him tramping about as I passed; was he furiously angry?" Then again, as Mostyn had not yet replied to her first question, she asked, "What are you doing?"
"You see." He tugged viciously at a strap and then stood erect, facing the girl. "I am going, Cicely. I am leaving the house to-night. I am never coming back." With a low cry she threw herself into her brother's arms, and her sobs broke out anew. It was a long while before Mostyn could comfort her. At last he dragged her down on to a sofa by his side, and explained to her that it was for the best that he should go. Luckily the thought of money and how he should work for himself in the future did not seem to occur to the girl; her grief was solely for the loss of her brother, the only one in the household with whom she was in sympathy.
"It'll be all right, dear," he whispered. "You've got Pierce; and when you are married—
She started from him, appalled by a new terror. "When we are married!" she cried; then, her voice shaking with anxiety, "Will Pierce and I ever be married, Mostyn? I—I never thought of it before, but father knows that it was Pierce who took you to the Derby. He won't forgive him either. He will break off the engagement! and I—oh, what will become of me?"
Her sobs broke anew, and this time she refused to be consoled.