Lady Elliston sat silent. She received Amabel's statements steadily yet with a little wincing, as though they had been bullets whistling past her head; they would not pierce, if one did not move; yet an involuntary compression of the lips and flutter of the eyelids revealed a rather rigid self-mastery. Only after the silence had grown long did she slightly stir, move her hand, turn her head with a deep, careful breath, and then say, almost timidly; "Then, he has lifted you up, Amabel?—You are happy, really happy, in your strange life?"
Amabel looked down. The force of her vindicating ardour had passed from her. With the question the hunted, haunted present flooded in. Happy? Yesterday she might have answered "yes," so far away had the past seemed, so forgotten the fear in which she had learned to breathe. Today the past was with her and the fear pressed heavily upon her heart. She answered in a sombre voice: "With my past what woman could be happy. It blights everything."
"Oh—but Amabel—" Lady Elliston breathed forth. She leaned forward, then moved back, withdrawing the hand impulsively put out.—"Why?—Why?—" she gently urged. "It is all over: all passed: all forgotten. Don't—ah don't let it blight anything."
"Oh no," said Amabel, shaking her head. "It isn't over; it isn't forgotten; it never will be. Hugh cannot forget—though he has forgiven. And someday, I feel it, Augustine will know. Then I shall drink the cup of shame to the last drop."
"Oh!—" said Lady Elliston, as if with impatience. She checked herself. "What can I say?—if you will think of yourself in this preposterous way.—As for Augustine, he does not know and how should he ever know? How could he, when no one in the world knows but you and I and Hugh."
She paused at that, looking at Amabel's downcast face. "You notice what I say, Amabel?"
"Yes; that isn't it. He will guess."
"You are morbid, my poor child.—But do you notice nothing when I say that only we three know?"
Amabel looked up. Lady Elliston met her eyes. "I came today to tell you, Amabel. I felt sure you did not know. There is no reason at all, now, why you should dread coming out into the world—with Augustine. You need fear no meetings. You did not know that he was dead."
"He?"