A man is never so tender as regards his heart as in the moment when he has been betrayed by one woman and succored by another; and Lord Cecil’s heart throbbed with a painful sense of admiration and gratitude toward this woman of the world, the girl whom he had always regarded as just a society beauty, who had, at such fearful risks to her own name, come to his side in his dark hour.
“May Heaven forget me if ever I forget it!” he said to himself, not once nor twice only. “What shall I say to her? What am I to do to show her how I feel about it? And where shall I get the money to repay her? I can’t let her be the loser; I must pay her; but how—but how?”
Meanwhile, Lady Grace had reached her house in Grosvenor Square, and, going to the drawing-room, found Mr. Spenser Churchill seated in an easy-chair, reading the last annual report of the Sweeps’ Orphan Home.
“Well?” he said, looking up with a bland smile.
She sank into a chair, and began pulling off her gloves, her eyes downcast, her face pale and thoughtful.
“It is done,” she said.
“Ah!” he said, with a nod of satisfaction. “You have seen him, then?”
“Yes, I have seen him,” she said, in a low voice. “I was only just in time.”
He smiled with an air of complacency.
“Oh, I think I timed it carefully,” he said. “I knew he would be at the office the moment they opened it; I calculated that he would be arrested shortly after, and that he would go to his rooms and telegraph to the marquis, allowing a little over an hour—say two—for the answer, a refusal, as the dear marquis and I arranged; and there you are, you see!” and he laughed, softly.