And thus, like the shadowy figures in a dissolving view, Christabel's guests melted away, and she and Jessie Bridgeman stood alone in the grand old hall which had been of late so perverted from its old sober air and quiet domestic uses. Her first act as the carriage drove away was to fling one of the casements wide open.
"Open the other windows, Jessie," she said impetuously; "all of them."
"Do you know that the wind is in the east?"
"I know that it is pure and sweet, the breath of Heaven blowing over hill and sea, and that it is sweeping away the tainted atmosphere of the last month, the poison of scandal, and slang, and cigarettes, and billiard-marker talk, and all that is most unlovely in life. Oh, Jessie, thank God you and I are alone together, and the play is played out."
"Did you see your husband to-day before he left?
"No. Why should we meet any more? What can we two have to say to each other?"
"Then he left his home without a word from you," said Jessie, with a shade of wonder.
"His home," repeated Christabel; "the home in which his poor mother thought it would be my lot to make his life good and happy. If she could know—but no—thank God the dead are at peace. No, Jessie, he did not go without one word from me. I wrote a few lines of farewell. I told him I had prayed to my God for power to pity and forgive him, and that pity and pardon had come to me. I implored him to make his future life one long atonement for that fatal act last year. I who had sinned so deeply had no right to take a high tone. I spoke to him as a sinner to a sinner."
"I hope he does repent—that he will atone," said Miss Bridgeman, gloomily. "His life is in his own keeping. Thank God that you and I are rid of him, and can live the rest of our days in peace."