As the Countess of Ilfracombe returned to the Hall, with her packet of letters in her hand, her heart was very glad, but at the same time it was filled with soberer thoughts than it had indulged in for some time past. What was after all the great difference between her and Nell Llewellyn? She had not fallen, it was true—she had not openly disgraced herself—but what had her flirtation with Jack Portland been if not a lowering of her womanly dignity; a soiling of her purity; a smirching of the delicate bloom and whiteness that should have protected her maidenly life as with a veil? Nora felt terribly ashamed of herself as she remembered it. Her great fear had passed away, thanks to Nell’s interest and intrepidity, and her mind had time to think of other things. This poor despised girl had saved her from all sorts of horrors; preserved her husband’s faith in her; his love for her; had placed in her hand, as it were, the whole happiness of her life. But she herself—if she destroyed these letters, as she fully intended to do, how would she be any better than before—any more deserving of Ilfracombe’s affection and confidence? She would be safe, it is true, but safety did not constitute worthiness. And Nora had begun to long to deserve her husband’s love—to be able to accept it with an unburdened conscience—feeling that there was nothing between them, not even a shadow cast from the past. Could she, she asked herself, as she wended homewards, ever summon up the courage to tell him everything, to make him the arbiter of her destiny, to constitute him her judge and await the sentence he chose to pronounce upon her? It would be very awful she thought, terrible beyond description; she did not think she could possibly undergo such an ordeal. She pictured to herself Ilfracombe’s stern face as he listened to the unfolding of a tale so dissonant to his own feelings, so unlike all he had conceived of her, so dreadful to hear of the woman of whom he thought so highly, who he had chosen for his wife before all others. Nora shuddered when she thought thus, and told herself that it could not be. She valued his good opinion and his affection too highly. But there was another side of the question. Without telling Lord Ilfracombe, her own part in the matter, how could she convince him of the treachery of Jack Portland towards them both; how induce him to break off, once and for ever, the dangerous intimacy which united them. Her husband might refuse to believe her mere word, as he had refused before. He was a loyal friend, and a generous man. He would not judge anyone on the unproved testimony of another person. Without the proof which those letters conveyed, would she have any more influence with him than she had had before, when he pooh-poohed her warnings as the idle fears of a well-meaning but ignorant woman? And had she the courage for the sake of them both, and especially for the sake of the husband whom she was beginning to love far better than she did herself, to brave the verdict of Ilfracombe’s displeasure, and tell him the whole truth? Nell had been courageous for both their sakes. From a worldly point of view she had no particular reason to care for the earl’s interests, still less for those of the wife who had supplanted her; yet she had braved being called a thief, and any other hard name Mr Portland might have thought fit in his rage to cast at her, in order to do good to those who had in a measure wronged her. Nell was worth a thousand of Nora, so the wife of Ilfracombe said inwardly as she dwelt on these things. And musing after this fashion she reached the Hall, not much happier than she had left it. It was true that she had regained possession of the letters which had made a nightmare of her married life, but they had not brought the peace with them which she had imagined they would. She was out of a certain danger, but she was still herself, that was what Nora thought, still, a wife who had deceived her trusting husband, and would not be cleansed in her own eyes till she had made a full confession of her sin. It was contemplating the divine forgiveness which Nell had extended to them both, the single-heartedness which she displayed, the patience and humility with which she bore her own sad lot, which was influencing Lady Ilfracombe almost unconsciously to imitate her as far as lay in her power.
Her indecision, combined with the promptings of the good angel within her, to do what was right, made Nora distraite and melancholy during the period of dressing for dinner, and when Lord Ilfracombe joined her he chaffed her on the bad effects of botanising with Jack.
‘You had much better have come out with Lady Bowmant and myself, Nora,’ he said; ‘we have had a rousing time, but you look as dull as ditch water. What has old Jack been saying to you to quench your spirits?’
‘Your dear particular friend has not been saying anything at all to me, Ilfracombe. I have not set eyes on him. He did not keep his appointment.’
The earl suspended his operations of dressing, and turned round to regard her with surprise.
‘Jack didn’t turn up?’ he ejaculated. ‘Why, what on earth can be the reason?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Nora; ‘and what’s more, I don’t care.’
‘Ah, my lady, that sounds very much like pique,’ exclaimed her husband, laughing; ‘but for Jack not to keep an appointment with you, I cannot understand such a thing. I hope nothing’s the matter with him.’
‘What should be the matter, Mr Portland’s like a bad halfpenny. He’s bound to come back again.’
‘And how did you spend your afternoon then, darling?’ asked the earl; ‘wasn’t it very stupid? How I wish you had come with us instead.’