“I'm rather afraid of doing that myself,” he said; “only it will not be his feelings.”
“I do not think,” she replied, “that it would be at all expedient to say or do anything at present. He must go with you to the Plateau. Afterwards—perhaps.”
Oscard laughed quietly.
“Ah,” he said, “that sounds like one of Meredith's propositions. But he does not mean it any more than you do.”
“I do mean it,” replied Jocelyn quietly. There is no hatred so complete, so merciless, as the hatred of a woman for one who has wronged the man she loves. At such times women do not pause to give fair play. They make no allowance.
Jocelyn Gordon found a sort of fearful joy in the anger of this self-contained Englishman. It was an unfathomed mine of possible punishment over which she could in thought hold Victor Durnovo.
“Nothing,” she went on, “could be too mean—nothing could be mean enough—to mete out to him in payment of his own treachery and cowardice.”
She went to a drawer in her writing-table and took from it an almanac.
“The letter you have in your hand,” she said, “was handed to Mr. Durnovo exactly a month ago by the woman at Msala. From that time to this he has done nothing. He has simply abandoned Mr. Meredith.”
“He is in Loango?” inquired Oscard, with a premonitory sense of enjoyment in his voice.