There was no egotism in her sorrow for his grief. She knew that he had loved her, and she knew that his parting would be the bitterest agony of his life; but in the depth of mortification which her own womanly pride had undergone, she could not look beyond the present shame of the discovery made that day, to a future of happiness and release.
"He will believe that I never loved him," she thought. "He will believe that he was the dupe of a designing woman, who wished to regain the position she had lost. What will he not think of me that is base and horrible?"
The face which she saw in the glass was very pale and rigid; the large dark eyes dry and lustrous, the lips drawn tightly down over the white teeth.
"I look like a woman who could cut her throat in such a crisis as this," she thought. "How often I have wondered at the desperate deeds done by women! I shall never wonder again."
She unlocked her dressing-case, and took a couple of bank-notes and some loose gold from one of the drawers. She put these in her purse, gathered her cloak about her, and walked towards the door.
She paused on the threshold to speak to her maid, who was still busy in the inner room.
"I am going into the garden, Parsons," she said; "tell Mr. Mellish that there is a letter for him in his study."
The room in which John kept his boots and racing accounts was called a "study" by the respectful household.
The dog Bow-wow lifted himself lazily from his tiger-skin rug as Aurora crossed the hall, and came sniffing about her, and endeavoured to follow her out of the house. But she ordered him back to his rug, and the submissive animal obeyed her, as he had often done in his youth, when his young mistress used to throw her doll into the water at Felden, and send the faithful mastiff to rescue that fair-haired waxen favourite. He obeyed her now, but a little reluctantly; and he watched her suspiciously as she descended the flight of steps before the door.
She walked at a rapid pace across the lawn, and into the shrubbery, going steadily southwards, though by that means she made her journey longer; for the north lodge lay towards Doncaster. In her way through the shrubbery she met two people, who walked closely side by side, engrossed in a whispering conversation, and who both started and changed countenance at seeing her. These two people were the "Softy" and Mrs. Powell.