He swallowed a few drops, and rose to go in spite of Mr. Chesterton's entreaties that he would stay until he was better.
"I am all right. It was but a temporary faintness. Heaven bless you for your kindness to a miserable man, Mr. Chesterton," said Eliot, wringing his friend's hand fervently.
Then he repossessed himself of Una's note that he had dropped on the floor, and went out of the room with a ghastly face. Mr. Chesterton, alarmed at his looks, followed him at a discreet distance until he saw him enter a car that would take him straight to Beacon Hill, then bethinking himself of an engagement he had for that evening, he hurried back home to don evening-dress and escort his beautiful wife to a soirée.
Returning home in the small hours, he concluded to make a confidante of his wife and enlist her sympathies in Eliot Van Zandt's case.
"What a romantic story!" exclaimed Mrs. Chesterton. "But I always thought there was something very interesting hidden in the past of our gifted governess. So she is a Van Zandt—one of the oldest, proudest names in Boston. My dear, I will speak to her in the morning, and see if I can not untangle the strange web of fate that has been woven around her life by that wicked Madame Lorraine."
"I knew your sympathies would be drawn to this unhappy pair, Constance!" exclaimed the banker, fondly.
But, alas! his story had been told too late. Morning found the young governess gone.
She had left the house during their absence, and taken her trunks with her, flying like a thief in the night, not from pursuit, not from shame, but from a husband's love, the deepest, fondest, most passionate that ever thrilled a manly breast.
"I must take the veil, then he will understand that all hope is indeed ended," she said, resolutely to herself. "I had no business returning here. Father Quentin told me it was wrong, but in my mad yearning to see his face, I would not listen. Now I must go back and stay there forever. Eliot will soon forget me, for it was more pity than love that he felt for me. When he realizes that all is irrevocably at an end between us, he will seek his freedom that he may return to his old love, his first love, Ida Hayes."
With the thought of her rival, all the old-time bitter jealousy rushed over Una's heart, and she told herself that Eliot had never really loved any one but Ida, and that he could not but rejoice some day that fate had freed him from the incubus of Little Nobody.