She caught his arm and looked him in the face. In another second she had loosed it.
“Of course,” she said, “you have a right to do that. Ring and send for the policeman, only remember that nothing is known now, but the whole truth will come out at the trial.”
This checked him, and he stood thinking.
“Well,” she said, “why don’t you ring?”
“I do not ring,” he answered, “because on the whole I think I had better let you go. I do not wish to be mixed up with you any more. You have done me mischief enough; you have finished by attempting to murder me. Go; I think that a convent is the best place for you; you are too bad and too dangerous to be left at large.”
“Oh!” she said, like one in pain. “Oh! and you are the man for whom I have come to this! Oh, God! it is a cruel world.” And she pressed her hands to her heart and stumbled rather than walked to the door.
Reaching it she turned, and her hands still pressing the coarse blue gown against her heart, she leaned against the door.
“Edward,” she said, in a strained whisper, for her breath came thick, “Edward—I am going for ever—have you no kind word—to say to me?”
He looked at her, a scowl upon his handsome face. Then by way of answer he turned upon his heel.
And so, still holding her hands against her poor broken heart, she went out of the house, out of Boisingham and of touch and knowledge of the world. In after years these two were fated to meet once again, and under circumstances sufficiently tragic; but the story of that meeting does not lie within the scope of this history. To the world Belle is dead, but there is another world of sickness, and sordid unchanging misery and shame, where the lovely face of Sister Agnes moves to and fro like a ray of heaven’s own light. There those who would know her must go to seek her.