“Soon after Mr. Melville, my lord; when she heard they meant to burn the house, my lady put on her hat and had her mare saddled and rode away.”
“Leaving no message?”
“None, my lord.”
A pause while the shadows seemed to thicken, blotting out all traces of light; then Lord Stair spoke, quietly:
“That will do. Go and look to the horses.”
The man obeyed, disappearing quickly, and Lord Stair ascended the gloomy stairs of his deserted house.
Groping aimlessly through the darkness he pushed open the first door he came to and flung himself into a chair.
So—his wife had gone—he had never expected it, like this, so brutally.
He remembered Lord Wharton’s coach and the closed blinds and cursed himself for a fool that he had smiled—why had not some devil’s whisper prompted him to send a bullet through those deceitful windows and kill the two that rode within?
And she had talked of her honorable house! It was part of her woman’s cunning—that he might leave her—safely trusting her cold dignity!