"You ask me," said Miss Stellenthorpe, after a slight silence which neither had broken, "you ask me why, swept off our feet as we were, he and I did not take the law into our own hands. My reply to you is that I had to suffer the double bitterness of her betrayal, and of his. For he failed me—his courage was less than mine. Although I urged him to take the strong way, the high line, he did not do so. He was afraid. I cast pride to the winds, my Lily—I held back nothing. But that other—she tempted him with specious pleadings of her 'rights,' and he was weak. I do not seek to deny it now. He took the coward's refuge."
Miss Stellenthorpe gazed sombrely at her niece.
"Flight. With her."
There was a solemn silence.
"But it was not to speak of myself that I came, carina, but of you. Do not wreck your life, little one, for a scruple. You have courage, n'est-ce-pas? It needs but one mighty effort to shake off the old superstitions—and after that Love, Freedom, Self-expression! Are these not worth a sacrifice?"
"Yes—if——"
"Go to your lover!" said Aunt Clo with a clarion call. "I am not afraid to say it," and indeed she was not. "Go to your lover."
It was more than difficult to undeceive Aunt Clo. Nor, when she finally took her departure, did Lily feel certain that Miss Stellenthorpe had relinquished all hope of her niece's ultimate defiance of the seventh commandment.
It gave her a faint sense of ironical amusement to discover that her father's thoughts had taken the same direction as had Aunt Clo's, inspiring in him diametrically opposite emotions.
Lily went to stay with him, and was glad that she looked ill enough to justify her leaving London whilst Nicholas was obliged to remain there.