Surprise held the listener dumb, and Nita continued:
"Never again while the world stands will I consent ever to look upon the face of Charles Farnham or Dorian Mountcastle."
"The girl is mad, mad as a March hare. Her adventures have turned her brain," murmured Mrs. Courtney amazedly.
"No, madam, I am not mad, I am perfectly sane, and I wish to make you an offer. Will you and Azalea go abroad with me, and travel wherever you wish for a year? I am rich. I will pay every expense if you will chaperon me on this trip. I will be perfectly frank with you. I want to avoid the two men of whom we have been speaking. I am afraid of them both. I have wronged them both, yet I am innocent of blame. Yet I fear the miser's hate and Dorian's love in equal measure. Oh, madam, be kind to me. Grant my prayer, and I will be forever grateful! And the time will come, I swear it to you, when you will say to yourself and to the world: 'I am glad I was kind to poor Nita, and had no hand in her tragic fate.' What say you, madam? Shall we start to-morrow on our travels?"
Nita need not have felt any doubt over the answer. It was the strangest turn of Fortune's wheel that Mrs. Courtney had ever known—the strangest, and the most welcome.
She felt that behind it lay some strange dark mystery, a baffling mystery that it should be her task to ferret out if it lay in mortal power, but in the meantime she accepted Nita's offer with pretended reluctance, putting it solely as a favor to the young girl. Then, after recommending her to retire as early as possible, she returned to her guests with a heart full of secret exultation.
Nita locked her door and fell down on her couch in a fit of hysterical sobbing. Mrs. Courtney's revelation had shown her all the horror of her position. Wife to two living men, she loathed the one who had the legal right to claim her.
And Nita knew, and the knowledge added poignancy to her pain, that it was her own fault. Why had she betrothed herself to Dorian when she was not free, cheating herself with a little semblance of happiness, and so led him on to the elopement that must now wreck his life?
She believed that Miser Farnham's wrath would be murderous when he recovered and learned what she had done. And Dorian, how he would hate her for her sin!