She sat there for a while gazing into the fire, too stunned with misery even to think; but presently everything came to her with merciless clearness. How small she had been all along! Instead of waiting until she heard the truth, she had let a wretched paragraph in a newspaper inflame her wounded vanity, so that she gave her promise to Henry there and then—putting the rope round her neck with her own hands. And afterwards, instead of being brave and true, wounded vanity again had caused her to tighten the knot. She remembered Henry's words when he had implored her to tell him what were the actual wishes of her heart—and how she had cut off all retreat by her answer. She remembered all his goodness to her and how she had accepted it as her due, making him care for her more and more as each day came.
"I have been a hopeless coward," she moaned, "a paltry, vain, hopeless coward. I should have owned Michael was my husband immediately. Henry could have got over it then, and now we might be happy—but it is too late; there is nothing to be done——!"
Then she buried her face in her hands and sobbed brokenly. "Oh, my love, my love—and I did not even now tell you all."
The clock struck one—supper would be beginning and she must go down. If Michael could bear this agony and behave like a gentleman, she also must play her part with dignity. Henry would be waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
She went rapidly to her room and removed all traces of emotion, and then she returned to the hall by the way she had come.
"I was growing quite anxious, dearest," Lord Fordyce told her, as he advanced to meet her when she came down the stairs. "I feared you were ill, and was just coming to find you. Let us go straight in to supper now—you look rather pale. I must take care of you and give you some champagne," and he placed her hand in his arm fondly and led her along.
They found chairs which had been kept for them at a centre table, near their hostess and Moravia, and here they sat down. Michael was nowhere in sight, but presently he came in with one of the house-party, and Mrs. Forster beckoned them to her—and thus it happened that he was again at Sabine's side. His eyes had a reckless, stony stare in them, and he confined his conversation to the lady he had taken in. And Henry, who was watching him, whispered to Sabine: