Before answering, the new-comer turned to the door, said a word to the servant waiting just outside—a word of directions as to paying the driver, for which purpose she handed her purse to Sydney’s mystified handmaiden—then, re-entering the room, she carefully closed the door.
“Can you take me in for a night, Sydney?” she asked. “You see, I have made sure of your doing so. I had nowhere else to go to.” She sat down, as she spoke, on the nearest chair: her attitude told of extreme dejection, her voice sounded faint and weary.
“Take you in, dearest? Of course we can, and with the greatest pleasure,” said Sydney, warmly. “Only—only—I fear—is there something wrong?”
“Yes,” replied Eugenia. “At least, I suppose you will call it something wrong. It is just that I have left him—left my husband—for ever.”
“Oh, Eugenia, oh, dearest sister, do not say so. It is too dreadful to be true. It cannot be so bad as that,” exclaimed Sydney, in horrified amazement. “Surely, dear, you don’t mean what you say—you cannot!”
“I do, though,” said Eugenia. “I left Halswood secretly this afternoon, and I never shall return there. It is done now; there is no turning back.”
“And why?” asked Sydney, striving to speak calmly, half inclined to think her sister’s brain was affected, yet, on the other hand, shrinking from the thought of what miserable story she might not be going to hear of terrible delinquency on Captain Chancellor’s part which had driven his outraged wife to this fatally decisive step. “I don’t like to ask you, Eugenia,” she went on, “but I suppose I must.”
“I will tell you all. I have been longing to do so,” returned Eugenia. “But, if you don’t mind, I should like to go upstairs and go to bed. I am so tired. Then I will tell you everything. May I have a cup of tea or a glass of wine? I have eaten nothing since the morning. I am so sorry to trouble you, dear,” as Sydney hastened away in search of the sorely-needed refreshment. “Frank is out, I suppose?”
Half an hour later, somewhat refreshed and revived by Sydney’s care, Eugenia told her story—told Sydney “all,” from the first faint misgiving as to the prospects of her married life—the first shadowy suspicion of her estimate of Beauchamp’s character having been a mistaken and illusory one; down through the long, painful struggle to blind herself to the truth, through the sad history of disunion and disagreement, of ever-increasing alienation, to the discovery of to-day—the discovery that, as she expressed it, “the one thing I clung to through all—the belief in his love for me, in his having loved me at least, was but a dream too—a part of the whole illusion—of the whole terrible mistake. For he never really cared for me, Sydney. When he left Wareborough that Christmas he had no thought of ever seeing me again; he had only been amusing himself. What happened at Nunswell was a mere chance—a mere impulse. He was in a mortified, wounded state from Roma’s rejection, and my evident devotion offered itself opportunely. I dare say he was sorry for me, too—pleasant to think of, is it not? I see it all as plainly as possible; the only thing that puzzles me now is, how I could ever have been so infatuated as to see it differently.”
“And did Mrs Eyrecourt really tell you all this?” inquired Sydney, for Eugenia had made no secret of the sources of her information. “When you taxed her, I mean, with the inferences to be drawn from the little girl’s chatter? I can hardly understand how your sister-in-law dared to say such things. Surely she might have tried to soften the facts!” She spoke indignantly, nevertheless she was conscious of a strong suspicion that her sister’s excited imagination had had to do with the filling in of some of the details which gave colour and consistency to the whole story.