"That at least is answer enough to my presumptuous hope," returned Mr. Sargent, with some bitterness.
"Mr. Sargent," said Lucy, who, though trembling greatly, had now recovered her self-command, "I beg your pardon for any pain I may have occasioned you. But, by surprising the truth, you have saved me the repetition of what I told you before. Tell me what you know of Mr. Worboise."
But Mr. Sargent's feelings—those especially occupied with himself—got the better of him now, bitterly as he regretted it afterward. He felt it a wrong that such a woman should pass him by for the sake of such a man; and he answered in the heat of injury:
"All I care to know about him is, that for the sake of his game among a low set of gamblers, he staked and lost a diamond ring—a rose-diamond, which one of his companions seemed to know as the gift of a lady. That is the man for whom Lucy Burton is proud to express her devotion!"
Lucy had grown very pale; but she would hold out till Mr. Sargent was gone. She had an answer on her lips; but if she spoke he would stay. Still she would say one word for Thomas.
"Your evidence is hardly of the most trustworthy kind, Mr. Sargent. Good-evening."
"It is of his kind, anyhow, whatever that may be," he retorted, and left the room. Before he reached the bottom of the stairs, he despised himself most heartily, and rushed up again to attempt an apology. Opening the room door, he saw Lucy lying on the floor. He thought she had fainted. But the same moment, Mrs. Boxall, who had only gone up stairs, came down behind him, and he thought it best to leave and write a letter. But Lucy had not fainted. She had only thrown herself on the floor in that agony which would gladly creep into the grave to forget itself. In all grief unmingled with anger there is the impulse to lie down. Lucy had not heard Mr. Sargent return or her grandmother reënter, for she had been pressing her ears with her hands, as if the last sounds that had entered had wounded them grievously.
"Well, I'm sure! what next?" remarked Mrs. Boxall. "I dare say fashions have come to that at last!"
What she meant was not very clear; but the moment she spoke, Lucy started from the floor and left the room. She had not been long in her chamber, however, before, with the ingenuity of a lover, she had contrived to draw a little weak comfort even out of what Mr. Sargent had told her. She believed that he had done worse than part with her ring; but when the thought struck her that it must have been for the sake of redeeming that ring that he had robbed his employer, which was indeed the case, somehow or other, strange as it may seem, the offenses appeared mutually to mitigate each other. And when she thought the whole matter over in the relief of knowing that she was free of Mr. Sargent, she quite believed that she had discovered fresh grounds for taking courage.
