In the meantime the wide-spread notoriety of the whole affair was very distressing to Mrs. Lyle and the Valentines, and to Queenie and Lawrence Ernscliffe as well. They could not bear to remain in London.
Lord Valentine took his wife and mother-in-law to Italy for an indefinite sojourn.
Lawrence Ernscliffe begged his wife to let him take her back to America to the beautiful home he had prepared for her reception three years before.
"It does not seem right to return to you and be happy after—after that terrible tragedy," she objected.
"Queenie, it was not your fault nor mine. Surely you will not doom me to wretchedness for such a scruple as that. You made every sacrifice she asked of you while living, and she would not wish you to immolate our mutual happiness upon her tomb, now that she is dead."
Her own heart seconded his pleading so fully that she could not say him nay.
"I had meant to fulfill my resolve to retire into a convent for life," she said, "but I cannot keep down my heart's rebellious throbs. I will go with you, my husband."
So it chanced that two weeks later the strangely-reunited husband and wife stood on the deck of a steamer just leaving her moorings for America, and as Queenie turned away from her last look at old England's fading shore, she saw a gentleman hastening toward her—a gentleman so like her poor, dead father, that her heart leaped into her throat.
"Uncle Rob!" she cried, springing forward with her hands extended.