The Duchess nodded. "But I can explain all," she mumbled.
"Explain it, then, to Constantine," said her enemy, contemptuously. "I go now. Meet me to-morrow at Liverpool Street Station--at the barrier. We can go to Southend by the five o'clock train. Constantine is on board Strange's ship, which lies off Southend."
"Ah! Then you mean to----"
"Carry you away? No; you are not worth it."
Leah's indomitable courage, quelled for the moment, blazed up fiercely. She forgot her pain, her disfigured mouth, and faced Katinka in a blind rage. "You--you----" she clenched her hands, and panted like a spent runner. "You have said all; I agree to all."
The Russian looked at the wounded mouth with a cruel, calm smile, then sauntered deliberately to the door. There she smiled still more serenely, pointed a mocking finger at her enemy's wry mouth, and slipped away without a word, and almost without a sound.
Leah sprang to the mirror. Had this woman marred her beauty? The mouth was swollen, the lips still bleeding; there were wounds within and without, and a rather loose tooth. Leah could have howled aloud at the shame, the humiliation of her defeat. That she should be struck, beaten, mastered--she of all women; she--she! "Ar-r-r! Augh!" she cried, but softly, mindful of danger. Then the thought came to her that she would have to account for her damaged mouth, and with the thought came enlightenment. Passing quickly out of the room, she ascended the stairs rapidly to her room. Half-way up she stumbled and fell. The footman, hearing the fall, ran up and lifted her. He saw that her mouth was bleeding. Natural enough--oh, perfectly natural! "It's them beastly long trains," explained the footman in the servants' hall.
[ CHAPTER XXXII]
"Never knew you to tumble before, Leah," grumbled the Duke, next morning, when admitted into his wife's bedroom.
"Accidents will happen," murmured the Duchess, rather lamely, and too much shaken to be original. "I can't talk, Jim--my mouth is still sore."