"For God's sake, be silent—come away!" exclaimed Yorke almost inaudibly.
She glanced at him as if she scarcely saw him.
"It was the happiest, proudest day of my life when he asked me to be his wife, and—and in the conviction that I could, and should, make him happy, I did not regret the means by which I had won him. I forgot, you see," she smiled bitterly, "that the day of reckoning might come. It has come and I face it! All the world may know the story——."
"No, no! Oh, no!" panted Lucy, whose gentle heart was melted by the agony which she knew this proud woman was suffering.
Lady Eleanor did not even look at her.
"I do not care who knows!" she said. "I have made my confession, and I have done with it." She made an eloquent gesture with her hands.
There was silence for a moment; then she said, addressing Leslie, in a low, distinct voice:
"I do not ask for your forgiveness, Miss Lisle. If I stood in your place I should find it as impossible to forgive as you do. I will not even utter the conventional wish that you may be happy. I tried to ruin your happiness in securing my own, and I have failed. Let that console you, as it will torture me! If you need further consolation, take it in the assurance that he has loved you all the time he has been promised to me. Yes!" she said with a deep sigh, "I have felt that all through. His heart was always yours, never mine. If this evening's work had never been, if we had married, he would have gone on loving you, and my punishment would have been greater than it is."
She was silent a moment; then, still looking at Leslie, she said, inaudibly to the rest:
"That woman, Finetta, lied when she spoke of you. Yes! I can understand how he came to choose you before me!"