Still holding her wrist, he looked into her eyes in a strange, hopeless way. He saw nothing in them to help him. He leaned down to her ear.
“Yes, death,” he said in a solemn whisper; “but the moral and spiritual death comes first.”
His hand left her wrist. He turned, and without a word strode away. Whither? Even as Tannhauser returned to the Venusberg, so Gerald Leigh returned to his studio and Carlotta.
Eugenia wept all the way home. Wept for herself and Gerald. Wept for the shame she had endured. Wept for the uselessness of the contemplated atonement. Wept for the life before her, and for a man’s future and career wrecked by her weakness.
The next week she married Sir Ralph Norgate. The ceremony was surrounded by befitting splendor. Yet, even at the alter, Gerald Leigh’s pale passionate face rose before her, and she knew it would never leave her thoughts. She loved him still!
On her wedding morning she received many letters. She had no time to read them, so took them with her, and perused them as she went north with her husband. Among them was one in a strange handwriting; it ran thus:
“For your sake he struck me—Carlotta! But he came back to me and is mine again. Him I forgive; not you. We go abroad together to warm, sunny lands. Some day we shall quarrel and part. Then I shall remember you and take my revenge. How? That husband, for whom you deserted Gerald, I shall take from you.”
Eugenia’s lip curled. She tore the letter and threw the pieces out of the carriage window.
Two years afterwards Lady Norgate was listlessly turning the leaves of a society journal. Although she was a great and fashionable lady she was often listless, and found life rather a dreary proceeding. She read to-day, among the theatrical notes, that Mlle. Carlotta, the divine opera bouffe actress, was engaged to appear next month at the “Frivolity.” Although the woman’s absurd threat was unheeded, if not forgotten, her name recalled too vividly the most painful episode in Lady Norgate’s life. She turned to another part of the paper and read that the gentleman who committed suicide under such distressing circumstances, at Monaco, had now been identified. He was Mr. Gerald Leigh, the sculptor, whose first important work attracted so much attention two years ago. It was hinted that his passion for a well-known actress was the cause of the rash deed.