Amabel spoke at last: "How, scot-free?" she asked.
Lady Elliston looked hard at her: "Your husband would have taken you back, had you insisted.—You shouldn't have fallen in with his plans."
"His plans? They were mine; my brother's."
"And his. Hugh was glad to be rid of the young wife he didn't love."
Again Amabel was trembling. "He might have been rid of her, altogether rid of her, if he had cared more for power and freedom than for pity."
"Power? With not nearly enough money? He was glad to keep her money and be rid of her. If you had pulled the purse-strings tight you might have made your own conditions."
"I do not believe you," said Amabel; "What you say is not true. My husband is noble."
Lady Elliston looked at her steadily and unflinchingly. "He is not noble," she said.
"What have you meant by coming here today? You have meant something! I will not listen to you! You are my husband's enemy;"—Amabel half started from her chair, but Lady Elliston laid her hand on her arm, looking at her so fixedly that she sank down again, panic-stricken.
"He is not noble," Lady Elliston repeated. "I will not have you waste your love as you have wasted your life. I will not have this illusion of his nobility come between you and your son. I will not have him come near you with his love. He is not noble, he is not generous, he is not beautiful. He could not have got rid of you. And he came to you with his love yesterday because his last mistress has thrown him over—and he must have a mistress. I know him: I know all about him: and you don't know him at all. Your husband was my lover for over twenty years."