The drawing-room door opened, and Lady Francis' high metallic voice sounded on the landing.
Mary seized up the pink envelope and crushed it in her hand! What? The drawing-room door closed again. The conference with the doctor was not quite over after all. She tore open the telegram and looked again at her foolish words before destroying them.
Then her colour faded, and the room went round with her. Who had changed what she had said? Why was it signed "Elsa"?
She looked at the envelope. It was plainly addressed—"Lord Francis Bethune." She had never glanced at the address till this moment. The contents were in code as hers had been, but it was the same code, and before she knew she had done so, she had read it.
What did it mean? What could it mean? Why should Elsa promise to meet him after the Speaker's Stairs—to-day—at Waterloo main entrance?
Mary was not quick-witted, but after a few dazed moments she suddenly understood. Elsa was about to go away with Lord Francis. But what Elsa? Her heart beat so hard that she could hardly breathe. Could it be Elsa Grey?
As we piece together all at once a puzzle that has been too simple for us, so Mary remembered in a flash Elsa's enigmatical face, and a certain ball where she had seen—only for a moment as she passed—- Lord Francis and Elsa sitting out together. Elsa had looked quite different then. It was Elsa Grey. She knew it. Degraded creature, not fit to be an honest man's wife.
Mary shook from head to foot under a climbing, devastating emotion, which seemed to rend her whole being. The rival was gone from her path. Jos would come back to her.
As she stood stunned, half blind, trembling, a hansom dashed up to the door, and in a moment Lord Francis' voice was in the hall speaking to the footman.
"Any letters or telegrams?"