The Countess kept her face hidden, and her bowed shoulders heaved.
"Nothing shall happen to the Earl, I dare swear."
Lady Sunderland looked up.
"Forgive me. I have not wept for so long. My son, my eldest son, is recently dead in Paris in an obscure duel—I hoped so much from him—once. Dead! Indeed I know not what I say."
Mary shuddered. She recalled the Lady Sunderland of former days—brilliant, ambitious, superbly happy—a woman she herself had looked up to with a half awe as a personification of all the allurement of that splendid life she had left so early; she thought of all the unscrupulous intrigues, bargains, deceits, buyings and sellings this lady had helped her shameless husband with; the extraordinary double game they had played so long and successfully. But looking at this, the sudden end, penniless, bereaved exile, she felt no scorn, only a great pity; for the Countess had been faithful, and Mary thought that a great virtue in a woman.
"I did not know that of Lord Spencer," she said gently. "I am very sorry; it is sad for you."
The Countess dried her eyes swiftly.
"I do not know why I should weep for him," she answered half fiercely; "he went near to break my heart. He was what they call worthless."
She paused, and Mary stood silent; she was not unaware that the sharpest prick to Lord Sunderland's magnificence had ever been that poor useless rake, his son, nor ignorant of the Countess's long endeavour to make some show before the world in this matter, and now that broken pride opened its heart to her, a stranger, the sadness of it held her mute.
Lady Sunderland's wet strained eyes looked past the fireglow to the bare boughs and cloudy heavens framed in the tall window.