She sank down into a chair near the fire, too weak to stand. Her husband stood opposite to her. She noticed idly that he was dressed with his usual business-like neatness, and that there was no sign of mental anguish in his aspect. He seemed very cold and hard and cruel as he stood before her, strong in his position as an injured man.
"I am not going to talk about last night any more than I am positively obliged," he said; "nothing that I or you could say would alter the facts of the case, or my estimation of them. I have made my plans for the future. Sophia and Lovel will go back to Yorkshire to-morrow. You will go with me to Spa, where I shall place you under your father's protection. Your future life will be free from the burden of my society."
"I am quite willing to go back to my father," replied Clarissa, in a voice that trembled a little. She had expected him to be very angry, but not so hard and cold as this—not able to deal with her wrong-doing in such a business-like manner, to dismiss her and her sin as coolly as if he had been parting with a servant who had offended him.
"I am ready to go to my father," she repeated, steadying her voice with an effort; "but I will go nowhere without my child."
"We will see about that," said Mr. Granger, "and how the law will treat your claims; if you care to advance them—which I should suppose unlikely. I have no compunction about the justice of my decision. You will go nowhere without your child, you say? Did you think of that last night when your lover was persuading you to leave Paris?"
"What!" cried Clarissa aghast. "Do you imagine that I had any thought of going with him, or that I heard him with my free will?"
"I do not speculate upon that point; but to my mind the fact of his asking you to run away with him argues a foregone conclusion. A man rarely comes to that until he has established a right to make the request. All I know is, that I saw you on your knees by your lover, and that you were candid enough to acknowledge your affection for him. This knowledge is quite sufficient to influence my decision as to my son's future—it must not be spent with Mr. Fairfax's mistress."
Clarissa rose at the word, with a shrill indignant cry. For a few moments she stood looking at her accuser, magnificent in her anger and surprise.
"You dare to call me that!" she exclaimed.
"I dare to call you what I believe you to be. What! I find you in an obscure house, with locked doors; you go to meet your lover alone; and I am to think nothing!"