“I will go presently—in a day or two,” he said. “I would go at once—for that is what you most ardently desire—but scandal— You have spoken of it, not I.”
“Yes,” she assented, dully. “I am to blame for being so ignorant—more than all the rest—and I do not want to make everybody unhappy and bring disgrace on—on the duke and Lilias.”
He bit his lip. She did not think of him; it was “the duke and Lilias.”
“I understand,” he said in as dull and dead a voice as her own. “You—you do not wish any one—the servants, the family—any one to know of this—this division between us?”
“No,” she said.
“No one need discover it,” he said. “We will remain here for a time—a few days—as long as you like—then I can go away. I can even stay, if you wish it; everything shall be arranged as you wish. We can be friends—in outward seeming, at any rate.”
“Yes,” she assented, mechanically.
She was weary to the point of exhaustion. If he had gone up to her and taken her in his arms, and held her against his heart in spite of herself, her heart would have yielded, and all would have been well.
But he did not do so. He thought that love was slain in her heart, and that to touch her—to utter a word of love—would but insult her and harden her. Men are always fools where the woman they love are concerned.
“The money”—he moistened his lips—“the money shall be made over to you again.”