[!-- H2 anchor --] CHAPTER XXVIII.
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"For my mother's sake, For thine and hers, O Love! I pity take On all poor women. Jesu's will be done, Honor for all, and infamy for none, This side the borders of the burning lake." |
ERIC MACKAY'S Love-Letters of a Violinist.
Lord Winsleigh did not move. Sir Philip fixed his eyes upon her in silence. Some occult fascination forced her to meet his glance, and the utter scorn of it stung her proud heart to its centre. Not that she felt much compunction—her whole soul was up in arms against him, and had been so from the very day she was first told of his unexpected marriage. His evident contempt now irritated her—she was angrier with him than ever, and yet—she had a sort of strange triumph in the petty vengeance she had designed—she had destroyed his happiness for a time, at least. If she could but shake his belief in his wife! she thought, vindictively. To that end she had thrown out her evil hint respecting Thelma's affection for George Lorimer, but the shaft had been aimed uselessly. Errington knew too well the stainless purity of Thelma to wrong her by the smallest doubt, and he would have staked his life on the loyalty of his friend. Presently he controlled his anger sufficiently to be able to speak, and still eyeing her with that straight, keen look of immeasurable disdain, he said in cold, deliberate accents—
"Your ladyship is in error,—the actress in question is the wife of my secretary, Mr. Neville. For years they have been estranged—my visits to her were entirely on Neville's behalf—my letters to her were all on the same subject. Sir Francis Lennox must have known the truth all along,—Violet Vere has been his mistress for the past five years!"
He uttered the concluding words with intense bitterness. A strange, bewildered horror passed over Lady Winsleigh's face.
"I don't believe it," she said rather faintly.
"Believe it or not, it is true!" he replied curtly. "Ask the manager of the Brilliant, if you doubt me. Winsleigh, it's no use my stopping here any longer. As her ladyship refuses to give any explanation—"
"Wait a moment, Errington," interposed Lord Winsleigh in his coldest and most methodical manner. "Her ladyship refuses—but I do not refuse! Her ladyship will not speak—she allows her husband to speak for her. Therefore," and he smiled at his astonished wife somewhat sardonically, "I may tell you at once, that her ladyship admits to having purchased from Violet Vere for the sum of 20 pounds, the letter which she afterwards took with her own hands to your wife." Lady Winsleigh uttered an angry exclamation.
"Don't interrupt me, Clara, if you please," he said, with an icy smile. "We have so many sympathies in common that I'm sure I shall be able to explain your unspoken meanings quite clearly." He went on, addressing himself to Errington, who stood utterly amazed.