CHAPTER XLV.
THE CUP OF HAPPINESS.
Six weeks later, when the world of fashion was ringing with the praises of Lady Auchester's beauty and amiability, and the society papers were prophesying that the future Duchess of Rothbury would become the most popular of the leaders of ton, Leslie and Yorke drove in a hansom to St. John's Wood.
They were very silent during the journey, and when they stopped at the house in which the famous Finetta of the Diadem had held so many merry parties, Leslie got out of the cab alone.
She was inside the house nearly an hour, and when she came out with her veil down and re-entered the cab she did not speak for some time, but held her husband's hand in eloquent silence.
"Well, dearest?" he said at last.
"Yes, I am glad I came," she said, in a low voice. "Very glad. Oh, Yorke, how changed she is! I scarcely knew her. You remember how strong and self-reliant she was? Now——," she stopped with a little sob. "And yet she is so happy and cheerful. She spends all her time thinking and working for others; the poor girls at the theater where she was, come and see her, and she helps them in all sorts of ways. While I was there the clergyman came in, and he spoke a few words to me outside her room. He said that if there ever was a really good woman she was one."
"Poor Fin!" said Yorke, under his breath.
"No, no," said Leslie; "not pity, Yorke. She does not need that, for she is happier now lying there, than ever she was in the old days of her strength and triumph. I told her all about you, and Lucy and Ralph, and she wants me to take Lucy to see her. She and Lucy will just suit each other. And Yorke——," she paused and held out her tiny fist to him. "She has given me something; for a wedding present, she said. Guess what it is."
"I give it up," he said quietly.