It never for one moment occurred to her that she should accuse Drake of his faithlessness, much less that she should upbraid him. Indeed, what would be the use? Could she—she, an ignorant, half-taught girl, just Nell of Shorne Mills—contend against such a woman as this Lady Luce?
Luce! Luce! She remembered—for the first time that night, strangely enough—how he had murmured the name in his delirium. She had forgotten that, she had not thought of it, and had not asked who the woman was whose visage haunted him in his fever.
If she had only done so! He would have told her—yes, for Drake was honest; he would have told her—and she would not have allowed herself to fall in love with him. Even as it was, she had fought against it; but her struggle had been of no avail. She had loved him almost from the first moment.
And now she had lost him forever!
"Drake, Drake, Drake!" her heart called to him, though her lips were mute.
What should she do?
No; she would not upbraid him. There should be no "scene." She knew instinctively how much he would loathe a scene. She would just tell him—what? That—that—it had all been a mistake; that—she did not love him, and—and ask him to give her back her freedom.
That was all. Not one word of Lady Luce would she say. He would go—go without a word; she knew that.
And now she must go back to the ballroom, and try and look and behave as if nothing had happened.
Was she very white? she wondered dully. She felt as if she had died, and was buried out of reach of any pain, beyond all possibility of further joy. Her life was indeed at an end. That kiss of Drake's—to her it had appeared as if indeed it had been his, and not Luce's only, stolen from him unawares—that kiss had killed her.