“No—no,” said Esmeralda, impetuously. “She will look everywhere but in the right place, and I know the exact spot where it fell. I will go; wait here for me; I will not be a moment.”
She ran out of the room even as she spoke, and Lady Wyndover laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
“She is just a girl,” she said to Lady Lilias.
“Yes, the dearest, sweetest of girls,” said Lilias. Esmeralda ran down the stairs—the hall was empty, for the guests were in the dining-room, and the servants feasting below—and into the drawing-room. She found her precious gift just where she expected, and was turning to run back, when she heard voices in the adjoining anteroom.
She paused half mechanically, a thrill running through her as she recognized Trafford’s—her husband’s!—and was about to leave the room when the words Ada said smote her ear; literally smote, for they fell almost like a physical blow that half stunned her. She stood rooted to the spot, the color fading from her face, her lovely eyes slowly distending with fear and horror.
She could hear every word, for the door was slightly ajar; by moving a little she could have looked in upon the two; but she was powerless to move; powerless to do anything but stand and listen with horror and a gradual, slowly growing sense of calamity and utter misery.
“Such love as mine lasts for a whole life, Trafford,” said Lady Ada. “It can never die. But you know that. I didn’t come to tell you that I should never change; only to say good-bye and—and to hear you say once more, and for the last time, that you—you love me!”
He stood looking at her, with knit brows.
“You know my heart, Ada,” he said. “Why do you torture yourself—and me—to no purpose?”