She caught her breath.
“And—you wait?”
“What else—yes, I wait.”
Lady Stair rose; as she lifted her head their eyes met.
“So,” she said very quietly. “You have given me that also—you have made me the wife of a disgraced, ruined man, you have dragged me into a hideous downfall of honor and estate. We of my father’s house have kept clear of these things—I think I am the first to be linked to a dishonored name.”
He stood silent, looking at her with an inscrutable expression.
“Reproaches from me will not sting you,” continued Lady Stair. “Dear Heaven, what are we to one another? I would have been spared this, yet it is a fitting end—”
Her wild eyes lifted and fell; she moved a step away across the grass.
Lord Stair spoke, slowly:
“You are free to do as you will—free as the servants I can no longer pay. Do what is in your mind to do. No doubt they will not blame you—”