Lenore looked at her with a sudden gleam in her violet eyes.
"Do you think I care?" she said, in a low voice—Leycester was not present. "I would not care whether we were married in Westminster Abbey, by the archbishop himself, with all the Court in attendance, or in a village chapel. It is not I, though I say so. It is for him. Say no more about it, dear Lady Wyndward; his lightest wish is law to me."
And the countess obeyed. The passionate devotion of the haughty beauty astonished even her, who knew something of what a woman's love can be capable of.
"My dear," she murmured, "do not give way too much."
The beauty smiled a strange smile.
"It is not a question of giving way," she retorted, with suppressed emotion. "It is simply that his wish is my law; I have but to obey—it will always be so, always." Then she slipped down beside the countess, and looked up with a sudden pallor.
"Do you not understand yet how I love him?" she said, with a smile. "No, I do not think anyone can understand but myself—but myself!"
The earl offered no remonstrance or objection.
"What does it matter!" he said. "The place is of no consequence. The marriage is the thing. The day Leycester is married, a heavy load of care and apprehension and I shall be divorced. Let them be married where they like, in Heaven's name."
So Harbor and Harbor were set to work, and the principal of that old-established and aristocratic firm came all the way down to Devonshire, and was closeted with the earl for a couple of hours, and the settlement deeds were put in hand.