This attempt at explanation, poured forth with rapid utterance, did not produce on Lady Dorothea the conviction it was intended to impose, and her Ladyship received the last adieus of the Duchess with a cold and stately formality; and then, as the door closed after her, turned to Kate Henderson, and said,—“I want your explanation of all this. Let me have it.”
“It is easily given, my Lady,” said Kate, calmly. And then, in a voice that never trembled nor varied, she narrated briefly the scene which had just occurred, not extenuating in the slightest her own share in the transaction, or offering a single syllable of excuse.
“And you, being who and what you are, dared thus to outrage the best blood of France!” exclaimed Lady Dorothea, trembling all over with passion.
“Perhaps, my Lady, if I sought for an apology, it would be in the fact of being who and what I am.”
“And do you imagine that after conduct such as this, after exposing me to a partnership in the shame that attaches to yourself, that you are any longer to enjoy the shelter of my roof?”
“It never occurred to me to think of that, madam,” said Kate, with an ill-repressed scorn.
“Then it is for me to remind you of it,” said her Ladyship, sternly. “You shall, first of all, write me an humble apology for this vulgar tirade, this outrage upon my company, and then you shall leave the house. Sit down there, and write as I shall dictate to you.”
Kate seated herself with an air of implicit obedience at a writing-table, and took up a pen.
“Write,” cried Lady Dorothea, sternly. “Begin, 'My Lady.' No. 'I approach your Ladyship for the last time.' No, not that. 'If the sincere sorrow in which I pen these lines.' No. Do it yourself. You best can express the shame your heart should feel in such a moment. Let the words be your own!”
Kate leaned over the paper and wrote rapidly for a few seconds. Having finished, she read over the lines, and seemed to reflect on them.