"Let us walk on!" cried the Countess. "I cannot stand still."
She moved forward through the trees, and Honoria followed.
For a while there was no speech between them, and the snapping of branches and crushing back of leaves was distinctly heard. The Countess pushed back the damp dark curls from her brow and burst into words again.
"Am I not a good woman?" she exclaimed. "Am I not as fair and as witty as that cousin of his? Why should they turn their backs on me? I wot that among the women he has courted were some not so well born as I."
"But he did not marry one of them," returned Honoria in her quiet, insinuating voice, "and that is your strength, my lady. You do not hold him by the bonds of fancy, or the bonds of liking, or bonds of fashion, but by the bonds of the law, and that is the most lasting thing, my lady."
They had come out on to a fair lawn that sloped to a lake, and the sky showed vast above them. Through the dark trees ran the constant tripping murmur of the wind, and the long grass bent towards the water when the breeze strengthened. The moon was almost overhead and floated in a faint golden haze.
The Countess turned and looked back at the house, impassive and fine in the veiled silver light.
"Could we not have bought such a place?" she said. "Ay, and finer, Honoria! Could we not have paid for them with pieces across the counter in our tradesmen's way, sooner than have made this bargain of scorn for hate, sooner than have given our all for this unendurable position?"
The misty moonshine fell over her close dark hair and slender figure. Her face was in shadow, and she supported herself by resting one frail white hand against the cold cedar trunk behind her.
"Listen to me." The maid spoke with gathered energy. "You are the Countess of Lyndwood, and that means you may do what you will, with all of them, my lady. Consider that."