"Yes; exposure: and it is that I wish to avoid. If it has to come, it will be your fault. The choice lies with you. My decision is unalterable."
Sir Karl Andinnian wiped his brow of the fever-drops gathered there. It was a bitter moment: and he considered that his wife was acting with most bitter harshness. But no alternative was left him, for he dared not risk exposure and its awful consequences.
And so, that was the decision. They were to live on, enemies, under the same roof-top: or at best, not friends. The interview lasted longer; but no more explicit explanation took place between them: and when they parted they parted under a mutual and total misapprehension which neither of the two knew or suspected. Misapprehension had existed throughout the interview--and was to exist. It was one of those miserable cases that now and then occur in the world--a mutual misunderstanding, for which no one is to blame. Sometimes it is never set right on this side the grave.
Her heart was aching just as much as his. She loved him passionately, and she was calming down from her anger to a softer mood, such as parting always brings. "Will you not send the--the people away?" she whispered in a last word, and with a burst of grief.
"If I can I will," was his answer. "I am hemmed in, Lucy, by all kinds of untoward perplexities, and I cannot do as I would. Goodnight. I never could have believed you would take it up like this."
They shook hands and parted. The affair had been at last amicably arranged, so to say: and the separation was begun.
And so Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian were henceforth divided, and the household knew it not.
Miss Blake did not suspect a word of it. She saw no signs of any change--for outwardly Karl and his wife were civil and courteous to each other as usual; meeting at meals, present together in daily intercourse. After a few days Miss Blake questioned Lady Andinnian.
"Surely you have not been so foolishly soft as to condone that matter, Lucy?"
But Lucy wholly refused to satisfy her. Nay, she smiled, and as good as tacitly let Miss Blake suppose that she might have been soft and foolish. Not even to her, or to any other living being, would Lucy betray what was sacred between herself and her husband.