“Take her advice, Louise,” he said, not unkindly. “Come away with me. Your fine friends will all desert you now as you deserve, but I will forgive you for our child’s sake. I can give you a home of comfort now in the far South, and you will at least be hidden from the sight of all those who know the history of your wicked ambitions.”
She caught eagerly at the offered refuge.
“I will go with you,” she answered, with a shamed and sullen air.
CHAPTER XLV.
A thrill of admiration for John Keith’s magnanimity ran along the nerves of every one, and Cecil Laurens felt shamed and remorseful.
“He carries out to the letter his promise to love and cherish her for better or worse,” he thought. “Alas, that I did not do so with my poor little girl-bride, whose youth might have been some excuse for her faults. Shall I ever find her again, and, if so, will she forgive me for my coldness and distrust?”
He looked fixedly at Louise, who nestled close to her husband’s side, as if finding in his fidelity some comfort under the storm of indignation that had burst on her head.
“Madame,” he said, coldly, “perhaps you carried your treachery so far that you were the cause of my young wife’s flight from The Acacias. Perhaps you could tell me, if you would, where to find her now?”
She started and flushed crimson, flashing him a sullen, angry glance.
“I can not,” she answered, bitterly.