“Yes,” he said, almost impatiently. “Why should she not? She wanted to see Lady Wyndover about—about something, I forget what. Why do you stare at me, Lilias?” Then, as he saw the tears start afresh from her eyes, he went on, remorsefully: “Forgive me; I scarcely know what I am saying. It is so sudden—so sudden! Yes, I am glad that she has gone.” The words stuck in his throat, but he managed to get them out. He must lie for the present, at any rate. Soon the hideous fact must be known, and all the lying in the world would be of no use; but he would screen her, hide the shameful thing as long as he could. “It is a good thing; she would have been terribly frightened and—and cut up. I will go to London directly—as soon as I can—and break the news to her.”
“She will hear it before you can get there,” said Lilias. “It—it will be in the evening papers.”
“Yes,” he said, passing his hand over his brow with a sigh.
How would Esmeralda receive it? It would seem like a stroke from Heaven to punish her.
He went upstairs and entered her room, and absently walked to the dressing-table. There still lay upon it the envelope addressed to him; for Barker had not noticed it, in the confusion of her discovery of Esmeralda’s absence, and the greater confusion of the duke’s death. He took it up, and with shaking hands opened it. The ring fell to the floor, and for a moment or two he seemed incapable of searching for it. When he had found it, he held it in the palm of his hand and gazed at it dully, as if it were something curious and unique; then its meaning bore down upon him, and with a groan he left the room, the ring clinched in his hand.
Telegrams of condolence commenced to pour in at once; friends and neighbors drove up to express their sympathy and to offer assistance, and Trafford opened the telegrams and saw the visitors. They went away impressed by the expression on his face and in his voice.
“The poor fellow seems quite knocked over!” remarked Lord Chesterleigh. “I never saw a man so stunned.”
“There was a very strong affection between him and his father,” said the man to whom he spoke.
“Yes, I know, very strong; but—well, Trafford looks as if he himself were smitten with death. It will be a dreadful blow to the marchioness and Lady Lilias. The marchioness is the duchess now. It sounds strange. We have not had a Duchess of Belfayre among us for so long.”
Nearly all the visitors talked of Esmeralda as they drove away from the hushed house, and some glanced up at the shrouded windows of her apartments, little guessing that she had flown as the angel of death had entered.