"Olive! Olive!" was all he could cry, and there was nothing but wild astonishment and passionate reproach in his voice. There was no room for anger now. He loved her, and it made him a coward, and he faltered and broke down.
Olive Henderson rose up as if to end the interview.
"Better we should understand one another now, Captain Cavendish, than later. Perhaps the day may come and sooner than you expect, when you will thank me for this. I am not good, and I should not have made you a good wife, and you have more cause for thankfulness than regret. Here is your ring, and with it I renounce all claim to you! We are from henceforth what we were before you spoke—friends! In that character I shall at all times be happy to see you. Good evening, Captain Cavendish!"
Captain Cavendish walked back to his hotel in a stunned and stupefied sort of way, much as a man might who had received a heavy blow on the head, and was completely benumbed. He had received a blow, a most unexpected and terrible blow; a blow so inconceivable, he could hardly realize it had really fallen. His worst enemy could scarcely have wished him a more miserable night than that which he spent, ceaselessly walking his room, and acting over and over again the scene that had so lately passed. O Nathalie Marsh! could you have risen up in spirit before him then, surely you would have thought yourself completely avenged.
Was Miss Olive Henderson, lying in luxurious ease among the satin pillows of a lounge in the dining-room, next morning, wearing a most becoming matin neglige, and listlessly turning over the leaves of a novel, thinking of her rejected lover, I wonder? Catty Clowrie, sitting sewing industriously at the window—for Catty was not above doing plain sewing for the heiress—and watching her stealthily between the stitches, wondered if she were really reading, or only thinking, as she lay there, turning over the leaves with restless fingers, and jerking out her pretty little watch perpetually to look at the hour. It was very early, only nine o'clock, too soon for her to expect visitors—even that indefatigable Mr. Wyndham, who came like clockwork every day, could hardly have made his appearance so early. Catty, thinking this, stopped suddenly, for a gentleman was ringing the door-bell—a gentleman with a white, fierce face, and a look about him, altogether, Miss Clowrie had never seen him wear before. Olive sat up and looked at Catty.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Captain Cavendish."
The black brow contracted suddenly, and Catty saw it. She, as well as all Speckport, knew there was a breach between the two, and she and all Speckport set Mr. Wyndham down as the cause.
Olive Henderson rose up, with her brows still contracted, and walked into the drawing-room. She shut the door behind her; and oh! what would not Catty Clowrie have given had the painted panels of that door been clear glass, that she might see what was going on. She could hear, not their words, but the voice of the captain, passionate and then reproachful, then pleading, then passionately angry again. Once she crept to the door; it was after an unusually vehement outburst on his part; and when her curiosity was excited beyond all bounds, she affixed her ear to the keyhole.
"It hardly becomes you, Captain Cavendish," she heard the voice say, in a tone of cold disdain; "it does not become you to talk like this of infidelity. If all tales be true, you have been rather faithless yourself in your time. People who live in glass houses are always the readiest to throw stones, I think!"