She looked at him with utter reproach and despair.
"God forgive you, Francis!"
He left her without a word or a backward look towards the seat where she sat dumbly weeping.
CHAPTER X
THE COUNTESS AT BAY
The Countess Lavinia sat alone by the light of a solitary candle in the great drawing-room of Lyndwood House; it was four in the morning, and she had been an hour back from the masquerade; over her chair hung the brilliant domino, and her dress, even in this light, glimmered with the sheen of a jewel.
She leant back in the heavily brocaded chair, her small hands resting on the arms, her head turned towards the open long windows where the dark silk curtains slightly stirred in the night breeze. On the gilt table beside her rested an open letter.
It was perfectly still in the high shadowed room; the sense of night, mystery, and loneliness was complete; the small heart-shaped flame of the candle revealed dimly the face and figure of my lady, the table, and the letter; for the rest shadows and fluttering glooms obscured the handsome furniture, the massive ceiling, the carved walls.