He had found her almost penniless in her Chelsea lodgings after the trial at Winchester, her last five-pound note having been sent to the lawyer who had undertaken Bolisco's defence. It was Lady Perivale's generous gift upon which he was now drawing for Kate Delmaine's comfort.
"After all I owe it to her that I was able to pull the business through so easily," he told himself, "and it's only fair that she should profit by my client's liberality."
The end came when November mists were rolling up the Channel, and the late roses were beginning to droop in the cottage garden. The end came peacefully, and not without the consolations of religion, for Mrs. Randall's landlady was a good Church-woman, and in touch with her parish priest, who was kindly and sympathetic, and able to understand a broken heart, even in a difficult subject, like this woman, whose life had been a stranger to all good influences.
"You've been a fast friend to me, Faunce," she said, when she was dying, and he had been summoned hastily for the last farewell; "and if I'd known a hard-headed, kind-hearted chap like you ten years ago I might have been a better woman. Well, I had my fling. There's not many women have had more of their own way or been more looked up to than I was in poor old Tony's time: there's not many women that ever had a truer lover than Dick Rannock, with all his faults. He couldn't keep straight with the cards," she murmured, beginning to wander; "but he was every inch a gentleman. Christ have mercy on his soul!"
EPILOGUE.
Grace Haldane To Susan Rodney.
"Villa Rienzi, Rome, April 15.
"You ask me, dear Sue, when I am going back to Grosvenor Square. If I were guided by my feelings at this present hour I should reply 'Never!' But feelings and inclinations may change, and my present distaste for London society and disgust at the thought of my London acquaintance may give way to the whim of the moment, and a sudden fancy for art, or music, or drama, which only London can give.
"I hope I am not a vindictive woman, but I own that I can never again take pleasure in the society of the people who so cruelly wronged me, the so-called friends who were willing to believe in misconduct that should have seemed impossible to any one who knew me; and who were not brave and honest enough to come to me and discover the truth from my own lips.