They had not been back in London a day when Mr. Parsons announced to her that at last all was going well. Mr. Arranstoun had put the matter in train and soon she would be free. And, shrewd American that he was, he wondered why she should get so pale. The news did not appear to be such a very great pleasure to her after all! Her greatest concern seemed to be that he should arrange that there should be no notice of anything in the papers.
"I particularly do not wish Lord Fordyce ever to know that my name was Arranstoun," she said. "I will pay anything if it is necessary to stop reports—and if such things are possible to do in this country?"
But Mr. Parsons could hold out no really encouraging hopes of this. No details would probably be known, but that Michael Arranstoun had married a Sabine Delburg and now divorced her would certainly be announced in the Scotch journals, where the Arranstouns and their Castle were of such interest to the public.
"If only I had been called Mary Smith!" Sabine almost moaned. "If Lord Fordyce sees this he must realize that, although he knows me as Sabine Howard, I was probably Sabine Delburg."
"I should think you had better inform his lordship yourself at once. There is no disgrace in the matter. Arranstoun is a very splendid name," Mr. Parsons ventured to remind her.
But Sabine shut her firm mouth. Not until it became absolutely necessary would she do this thing.
Henry's company now had no longer power to soothe her; she found herself crushing down sudden inclinations to be capricious to him or even unkind—and then she would feel full of remorse and regret when she saw the pain in his fond eyes. She was thankful that they were returning to Paris, and then she meant to go straight to Héronac, telling him he must see her no more until she was free. It was the month of the greatest storms there; it would suit her exactly and it was her very own. She need not act for only Madame Imogen and Père Anselme. But when she thought of this latter a sensation of discomfort came. How could she read in peace with the dear old man, who was so keen and so subtle he would certainly divine that all was not well? And ever his sentence recurred to her: "Remember always, my daughter, that le Bon Dieu settles things for us mortals if we leave it all to Him, but if we take the helm in the direction of our own affairs, it may be that He will let circumstance draw us into rough waters." And then, that as she had taken the helm she must abide by her word. Bitterness and regret were her portion—in a far greater degree than after that other crisis of her life, when its realities had come to her, and she knew she must bear them alone. She had been too young then to understand half the possibilities of mental pain, and also there was no finality about anything—all might develop into sunshine again. Now she had the most cruel torture of all, the knowledge that she herself by her wilfulness and pride had pulled down the blinds and brought herself into darkness, and that there was not anything to be done.
Nothing could have been more unhappy than was the state of these two young people in their separate homes. In the old days when she used to try and banish the too lenient thoughts of Michael, she had always the picture of his selfishness and violent passion to call up to her aid—but that was blotted out now, and in its place there was the memory that it was he, not she, who had behaved nobly and decided to sacrifice all happiness to be true to his friend. Sometimes when she first got back to Héronac she, too, allowed herself to dream of their good-bye, and the cruel sweetness of that brief moment of bliss, and she would go through strange thrills and quivers and stretch out her arms in the firelight and whisper his name aloud—"Michael—my dear love!"
She could not even bear the watching, affectionate eyes of Madame Imogen and sent her to Paris on a month's holiday. The Père Anselme had been away when she arrived, at the deathbed of an old sister at Versailles, so she was utterly alone in her grim castle, with only the waves.
The once looked-for letters from Henry were a dreaded tie now. She would have to answer them!—and as his grew more tender and loving, so hers unconsciously became more cold, with a note of bitterness in them sometimes of which she was unaware.