“She has gone. The carriage has just driven away from the cottage where she stopped.”
Lady Linton sank back again with a groan.
She was too late. She had meant to do a good deed. Under the impulse of the moment, and with a feeling of gratitude animating her, overcome with admiration for a rarely beautiful woman, and a sense of superiority; with the vision of that lovely, dark-eyed child still before her, she had resolved to make a full confession of all her wrong-doing, try to effect a reconciliation between those two who, she knew, still devotedly loved each other, and thus atone, as far as was possible, for the sin she had committed.
But the opportunity was gone, and when she came to think of it more calmly afterward, she began to upbraid herself for her momentary weakness, and to be glad that she had not committed herself.
Her good angel fled, her better nature was overcome, and she grew harder, more bitter than before.
“There will be some way out of it,” she muttered, as she recalled Virgie’s threat to claim her child’s heritage. “I will fight it out to the bitter end. I am glad I did not make a fool of myself.”
CHAPTER VII.
AFTER EIGHT YEARS.
Eight years have passed since Lady Linton, with her son and daughter, her cousin William Heath, and his family, visited America; since she so nearly fell a victim to that railway disaster, and was rescued by a woman whom she had hated, whom she now hated a hundred-fold.
It is a beautiful winter morning, and in the sunny, elegantly appointed dining-room at Heathdale an interesting group of five persons is gathered around the bountifully spread breakfast table.
At one end sits Sir William Heath, a handsome, dignified gentleman a little above forty, yet hardly looking that, for the fleeting years have touched him but lightly, in spite of the great sorrow which has lain so heavily upon his heart and robbed his life and his home of its chief joys—the love and presence of a fond, true wife, the patter of little feet, and the happy laughter and merry chatter of childish voices.