Hastily, with Ellen’s aid, she packed a few things into her little portmanteau. She put in just what she would most need for some evenings’ stay; she put in also her diamonds and the rest of her jewellery, not omitting the coral necklet Will Deverill gave her long ago in the Tyrol. Luckily, she had in her desk the week’s money for the housekeeping. She took it out—it was her own—and turned more calmly to Ellen. “My child,” she said, laying two sovereigns in her hand, “will you come with me where I go? Remember, Mr Hausberger says you’re his servant.”
And the girl, looking up at her with a burst of compassion and enthusiastic affection, made answer at once: “I’d go with you, Signora, if they was to cut off my head for it. How dare he ever treat you so—such a man as him—and you a lady anyone ’ud love to die for!”
“Thank you, dear,” Linnet said, much touched; for to her, even her servants were perfectly human. “Then run up and put your things on as fast as you can, and ask Maria to call a hansom.”
When it came to the door, she stepped in, and Ellen after her. “Where shall I drive, Mum?” the cabman asked. And Linnet, through the flap, made answer boldly, “To Duke Street, St James’s.”
“That’s where Mr Deverill lives, ma’am, isn’t it?” Ellen interposed, somewhat tremulously.
“Yes, child,” Linnet answered, with a choking voice, but very firmly still, for she had quite made her mind up. “Mr Deverill lives there—and I’m going to Mr Deverill’s. I’ve no right to go—but I’m going, all the same. If you’d rather not come, you can leave me at the door. You know what it means. Perhaps it would be better.”
The girl glanced back at her, all flushed. “I don’t care a pin whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong,” she answered warmly. “I’ll go with you to the world’s end. I’ll go with you anywhere. I’d go with you if you was going to the worst house in London.”
Linnet answered nothing. She was red with shame—the very words appalled her—but she meant to go through with it. Too long had she trampled her own heart under foot; now her heart would have its way, and she meant to allow it. Her fiery Southern blood had got the better of her. She would fly from the man who had married her only for what he could make of her, to the man she had always truly loved—the man who had always truly loved her.
“Is Mr Deverill in?” she asked with a beating heart of the servant at the lodgings. And when the man answered, “Yes, ma’am,” in an unconcerned tone, her heart rose like a lump in her throat within her.
But she kept her exterior coolness. “Bring in the portmanteau, Ellen,” she said, with a quiet air of command; and the girl obeyed her. “Now, sit there in the hall till I come down again and call you.”