The contrast between what she was and what she might have been was rather striking, certainly; and the bitterest pang of all was the thought she had no one to blame, from first to last, but herself.
Oh, if she had only been true! This was what came of marrying for love, and trampling under foot prudence, and honour, and truth. A month or two of joy, and life-long regret and repentance!
Doctor Danton, his wife, and sister, took a hurried scamper over London, and departed for Paris.
The weather in that gay capital was very warm, indeed, but delightful to Rose, who had never crossed the Channel before. Paris was comparatively familiar ground to the young Doctor; he took the two ladies sight-seeing perpetually; and Mrs. Stanford almost forgot her troubles in the delights of the brilliant French city.
A nurse had been engaged for baby, so that troublesome young gentleman no longer came between his mamma and life's enjoyment. Her diminished wardrobe had been replenished too; and, well-fed and well-dressed, Rose began to look almost like the sparkling, piquant Rose of other days.
The Dantons had been three weeks in Paris, and were to leave in a day or two en route for Switzerland. The Doctor had taken them for a last drive through the Bois de Boulogne the sunny afternoon that was to be their last for some time in the French capital. Kate and Rose, looking very handsome, and beautifully dressed, lay back among the cushions, attracting more than one glance of admiration from those who passed by.
Mrs. Danton was chatting gayly with her husband, and Rose, poising a dainty azure parasol, looked at the well-dressed Parisians around her.
Suddenly, the hand so daintily holding the parasol grasped it tight, the hot blood surged in a torrent to her face, and her eyes fixed and dilated on two equestrians slowly approaching. A lady and gentleman—the lady a Frenchwoman evidently, dark, rather good-looking, and not very young; the gentleman, tall, eminently handsome, and much more youthful than his fair companion, Rose Stanford and her false husband were face to face!
He had seen them, and grown more livid than death; his eyes fixed on Doctor Danton and his beautiful wife, talking and laughing with such infinitely happy faces.
One glance told him how matters stood—told him the girl he had forsaken was the happy wife of a better man. Then his glance met that of his wife, pretty, and blooming and bright as when he had first fallen in love with her; but those hazel eyes were flashing fire, and the pretty face was fierce with rage and scorn.