"My darling," he sobbed; "my darling whom I would die to make happy—whose life I have so utterly ruined. To think that while I spend wealth like water, you should toil for a crust of bread—alone, poor, friendless, in this great city. How will I answer to God and man for what I have done?"
CHAPTER II.
EDITH.
The last light of the July day had faded out, and a hot, murky night settled down over London. The air was stifling in the city; out in the suburbs you still caught a breath, fresh and sweet scented, from the fragrant fields.
At Poplar Lodge, St. John's Wood, this murky, summer night all the windows stood wide. In the drawing-room two women sat together. The elder reading aloud, the younger busy over some feminine handicraft. A cluster of waxlights burned above them, shining full on two pale, worn faces—the faces of women to whom suffering and sorrow have long been household words. Both wore deepest mourning—the elder a widow's weeds, the hair of the younger thickly streaked with gray. Now and then both raised their eyes from a book and needlework, and glanced expectantly at the clock on the mantel. Evidently they waited for some one who did not come. They were Lady Helena Powyss and Inez Catheron, of course.
"Eight," the elder woman said, laying down her book with a sigh as the clock struck. "If he were coming to-night he would be here before now."
"I don't give him up even yet," Inez answered cheerfully. "Young men are not to be depended on, and he has often come out much later than this. We are but dull company for him, poor boy—all the world are but dull company for him at present, since she is not of them. Poor boy! poor Victor! it is very hard on him."
"I begin to think Edith will never be found," said Lady Helena with a sigh.
"My dear aunt, I don't. No one is ever lost, utterly, in these days.
She will be found, believe me, unless—"
"Well?"