It was his own voice, but not his will, that spoke. Had any one ever made him suffer like this woman who loved him?
Lady Newhaven had returned to Westhope ill with suspense and anxiety. She had felt sure she should successfully waylay Hugh in his rooms, convinced that if they could but meet the clouds between them (to borrow from her vocabulary) would instantly roll away. They had met, and the clouds had not rolled away. She vainly endeavored to attribute Hugh's evident anger at the sight of her to her want of prudence, to the accident of Captain Pratt's presence. She would not admit the thought that Hugh had ceased to care for her, but it needed a good deal of forcible thrusting away. She could hear the knock of the unwelcome guest upon her door, and though always refused admittance he withdrew only to return. She had been grievously frightened, too, at having been seen in equivocal circumstances by such a man as Captain Pratt. The very remembrance made her shiver.
"How angry Edward would have been," she said to herself. "I wonder whether he would have advised me to write a little note to Captain Pratt, explaining how I came there, and asking him not to mention it. But, of course, he won't repeat it. He won't want to make an enemy of me and Hugh. The Pratts think so much of me. And when I marry Hugh"—(knock at the mental door)—"if ever I marry Hugh, we will be civil to him and have him to stay. Edward never would, but I don't think so much of good family, and all that, as Edward did. We will certainly ask him."
It was not till after luncheon that Lady Newhaven, after scanning the Ladies' Pictorial, languidly opened the Morning Post.
Suddenly the paper fell from her hands on to the floor. She seized it up and read again the paragraph which had caught her eye.
"No! No!" she gasped. "It is not true. It is not possible." And she read it a third time.
The paper fell from her nerveless hands again, and this time it remained on the floor.
It is doubtful whether until this moment Lady Newhaven had known what suffering was. She had talked freely of it to others. She had sung, as if it were her own composition, "Cleansing Fires." She often said it might have been written for her.
In the cruel fire of sorrow,
[slow, soft pedal.
Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail,
[both pedals down, quicker.
Let thy hand be firm and steady,
[loud, and hold on to last syllable.
Do not let thy spi-rit quail,
[bang! B natural. With resolution.
Bu-ut. . . .
[hurricane of false notes, etc., etc.