The spell was broken by a cry from the stage and Lady Heathcote’s scream. Lady Caroline had swayed and fallen. The blade of the dagger which she still held had slipped against her breast as she fell, and blood followed the slight cut. The crowd surged forward in excitement and relaxation, while waves of lively orchestral music rolled over the confusion, through which the crumpled figure was carried to a dressing-room.
Only those near-by saw the dagger cut, but almost before Gordon had emerged into the night a strange rumor was running through the assembly. It grew in volume through the after-quadrille and reached the street.
“Caroline Lamb has tried to stab herself,” the whisper said.
CHAPTER XX
THE EXILE
Fletcher was watching anxiously for his master’s return that night. When he entered, there were new lines in his face—the stigmata of some abrupt and fearful mental recoil.
“Order the coach to be got ready at once,” Gordon directed, “and pack my portmanteau.”
He went heavily into the library, gazing at the book-shelves with eyes listless and dull. Presently, with the same nerveless movements, he unlocked a drawer and took therefrom several small articles: a lock of Ada’s hair—a little copy of “Romeo and Juliet” given him years before by his sister—and the black bottle. He thrust these into his great-coat pocket.
Amid the litter of papers on his desk a document met his eye: it was the draft of separation submitted by Sir Samuel Romilly. Through his mind flitted vaguely his struggle as he had sat with that paper before him. The struggle was ended; justice was impossible. It remained only to sign this, the death-warrant of his fatherhood. He wrote his name without a tremor, franked it for the post and laid it in plain view, as Fletcher entered to announce the carriage.
The deep lines were deeper on Gordon’s face as he went to the pavement; he moved like a sleep-walker, his body obeying mechanically the mandate of some hidden, alert purpose working independently of eye and brain. An inner voice rather than his own seemed to give the direction—a direction that made the coachman stare, made Fletcher with a look of dismay seize coat and hat and climb hurriedly to the box beside him.
Gordon did not see this—he saw nothing, knew nothing, save the rush of the coach through the gloom.