“Thanks, Mr. Churchill; but I have no further use for you.”
At this turning of the tables, at this repudiation by the woman he had regarded and used as a tool and dupe, Spenser Churchill was almost overcome, and his light eyes flashed viciously; then, with an effort that must have caused him a great deal of self-restraint, he checked himself, and stretching out his hand and casting up his eyes to the ceiling, said decorously, and proudly:
“I forgive you, Lady Grace. I pity you, and I shall not forget to remember you in my prayers. Poor woman!”
Now, Lady Grace ought to have turned her back upon him in silent contempt, but she had been sorely strained, and this, the hypocritical taunting of the worm who had a few moments ago been ready to crawl at the feet of his accusers, was the last straw which broke the back of her self-restraint, and as Mr. Spenser Churchill passed her, I regret to say that she closed her fan sharply and struck him across the face with it. Lady Grace possessed a magnificent arm; the fan was a large one, of carved ivory, with many sharp corners. Mr. Spenser Churchill uttered a howl of pain, and fled.
Lord Cecil approached her and offered her his arm. She had merely, if not quite, wrecked his life, she had caused pain and suffering to the girl he loved, she was unworthy of one moment’s pity, but he remembered that she was a woman, and that she would have been his wife, and he offered her his arm in silence. She looked up at his face with a quick, almost agonized, questioning, then turned from him, her face white, her lips quivering.
“No!” she said, almost inaudibly, “there can be no half way for us. Friend or foe, Cecil! Will you keep your promise to me?” She had no need to go further; his face, grave and grim, answered for him. With a swift compression of her lips she caught up a shawl that hung on a chair, and without lifting her eyes to his face, again slowly left the room.
Percy Levant took up his hat and went to Lady Despard, who was standing beside Doris.
“Will you—will you stay with her and—and help her? She was never more in need of your love than now,” and he glanced significantly at the white face of the old man at whose knees Doris knelt.
She nodded silently, and Percy Levant, as he passed Lord Cecil, said in a low voice:
“I hold myself at your disposal, my lord, completely, entirely, without any reservation.” Then he stopped and looked at Doris—a look impossible to describe, easy enough to imagine—and seemed about to speak, but with a sigh he turned and walked out, and Doris scarcely knew that he had gone.