“Dear Hyacinth, it was a childish dream—and you have awakened! You will live to be glad of being recalled from falsehood to truth. Your husband is worth fifty De Malforts, did you but know it. Oh, dearest, give him your heart who ought to be its only master. Indeed he is worthy. He stands apart—an honourable, nobly thinking man in a world that is full of libertines. Be sure he deserves your love.”
“Don’t preach to me, child! If you could give me a sleeping-draught that would blot out memory for ever—make me forget my childhood in the Marais—my youth at St. Germain—the dances at the Louvre—all the days when I was happiest: why, then, perhaps, you might make me in love with Lord Fareham.”
“You will begin a new life, sister, now De Malfort is gone.”
“I will never forgive him for going!” cried Hyacinth, passionately. “Never—never! To give me no note of warning! To sneak away like a thief who had stolen my diamonds! To fly for debt, too, and not come to me for money! Why have I a fortune, if not to help those I love? But—if he was that woman’s lover—I will never see his face again—never speak his name—never—from the moment I am convinced of that hellish treason—never! Her lover! Lady Castlemaine’s! We have laughed at her, together! Her lover! And there were other women those spiteful wretches talked about just now—a tradesman’s wife! Oh, how hateful, how hateful it all is! Angela, if it is true, I shall go mad!”
“Dearest, to you he was but a friend—and though you may be sorry he was so great a sinner, his sins cannot concern your happiness——”
“What! not to know him a profligate? The man to whom I gave a chaste woman’s love! Angela, that night, in the ruined abbey, I let him kiss me. Yes, for one moment I was in his arms—and his lips were on mine. And he had kissed her—the same night perhaps. Her tainted kisses were on his lips. And it was you who saved me! Dear sister, I owe you more than life—I might have given myself to everlasting shame that night. God knows! I was in his power—her lover—judging all women, perhaps, by his knowledge of that——”
The epithet which closed the sentence was not a word for a woman’s lips; but it was wrung from the soreness of a woman’s wounded heart.
Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister’s arms.
“You saved me!” she cried, hysterically. “He wanted me to go to Dover with him—back to France—where we were so happy. He knelt to me, and I refused him; but he prayed me again and again; and if you had not come to rescue me, should I have gone on saying no? God knows if my courage would have held out. There were tears in his eyes. He swore that he had never loved any one upon this earth as he loved me. Hypocrite! Deceiver—liar! He loved that woman! Twenty times handsomer than ever I was—a hundred times more wicked. It is the wicked women that are best loved, Angela, remember that. Oh, bless you for coming to save me! You saved Fareham’s life in the plague year. You saved me from everlasting misery. You are our guardian angel!”
“Ah, dearest, if love could guard you, I might deserve that name——”