"If the earl and countess consent you could be remarried to-day. Nothing is wanted but their permission."
"Thank you," she said, gently. Then with pathos and dignity that touched him greatly she held out her hand to him. "I do not blame you for the message you have brought," she said; "the fault lies with Lady Lanswell and the English law, not with you. You have fulfilled your mission as kindly as you could. I forgive you what you have done and what you have said."
The white lips closed firmly, no other sound came from them, but Mr. Sewell looked back as he closed the door, and she lay then with her face on the floor. He did not go to her; he thought it was better to leave her alone. He said to himself, as he quitted the house, that not for all the wealth of the Lanswells would he pass through another such scene.
The hour came in which she raised her face once again to the sunlight, and tried to realize what had happened. She had risen that morning the happiest girl in all England, her only anxiety being to make herself more beautiful than ever in her husband's eyes. The morning itself was not more fresh and fair; everything had been couleur de rose.
Her husband, as she believed him, thought so little of the quarrel with his parents that she had imbibed his careless, happy ideas about it. There was no cloud in her sky, no doubt in her heart; now her heart was full of despair. She looked at the blue September sky, and asked herself if it were possible to realize what had happened. She was dazed, stunned, as though some one had struck her a violent blow. She went out of the pretty drawing-room where she had heard what seemed to her her death-warrant. She opened her white lips to breathe the pure, fresh air of heaven.
As she stood there panting for breath, one of the servants came to her, holding a letter in her hand. Leone opened it. The few hastily-written lines were from her husband. They said, simply:
"My Darling,—I shall not be able to return home to-day. I have some disagreeable business in town, of which I will tell you more anon. I shall be at home for luncheon to-morrow. Believe me, always your loving husband,
"Lance."
She looked at the word "husband" until the letters seemed to burn like fire. He had signed himself her husband. Ah, then, it was quite plain that he neither believed, or, perhaps, had not even heard, of what had been done. As she stood there with the fading boughs of a spreading tree over her head, the words came to her again and again:
"Those vows were all forgotten,
The ring asunder broke."
She seemed once more to hear the falling of the waters. Would the vows made to her ever be broken? Ah, no! a thousand times no!