“You will find new combs and hair brushes, and everything else you will require, on the dressing table, or on the washstand,” Miss Meeke explained.
While the governess and her pupil were doing all they could to make the stranger guest comfortable in the spare room, Mrs. Force, assisted by her woman, Luce, and followed by Elva, supported her helpless daughter up to Odalite’s own room, where they undressed and put her to bed.
Odalite soon fell into a deep sleep.
Her mother sat down by her bed to watch, and told Elva to go downstairs and help to entertain their guest; and told Luce to leave the room, but to remain within call.
When the lady was left alone with her sleeping child, and had time to collect her thoughts, she was divided between a sense of relief in her daughter’s unexpected rescue from the martyrdom of an abhorrent marriage, and terror as to what the archenemy and artful plotter might do next.
Would he pocket his shame and go back to his own land?
Would he linger in the neighborhood, stubborn, defiant and aggressive, as he had shown himself in the church?
Above all, would he attempt to see her again, to get any other advantage over her from the power he possessed in the knowledge of her secret?
He could not insist on any marital rights over Odalite—that was quite certain now.
Would he demand money as the price of his silence? If so, he should have all the money she could command of her own by the sale of her jewels, laces and India shawls, on condition that he should leave the country.