Alone in the dreary solitude of Falcon's Chase, Lauraine receives that message from her enemy. It is early morning; the sun is shining, the birds in the forest avenues are singing their gladdest and loudest welcome to spring; she stands at the window of her morning-room and reads those lines penned in the Rue Victoire, and a great darkness seems to come over her.
All her energies seem paralysed; she cannot think, cannot decide. Her husband dangerously ill, alone in a foreign land, deserted by the woman for whom he has wronged his wife, and Keith—Keith dying.
The sunlight seems to blind her; the light of day is cruel. Her heart feels numbed and dead, and in her brain a thousand hammers seem to beat, and through all that numbness and discord one thought alone shapes itself in stern and terrible distinctness. One thought; it is Duty!
He has neglected her, he has outraged her, he has forfeited all honour and respect. Yet none the less is he her husband, none the less is he the father of her child.
Her child! who lay in her bosom, and smiled into her eyes and made earth Paradise for just a little space!
But Keith? Keith, whom she loves; Keith, whom she has wronged; Keith dying, and she cannot be near him, cannot meet once more the look of the "bad blue eyes," cannot whisper peace or comfort to the young and passion-wrecked soul!
Her heart feels breaking. The awfulness of this decision seems beyond her strength to make; and yet she knows—she cannot but know—which is the right course, because of its very hardness.
"I have sinned; I must suffer," she groans despairingly, and then moves away with half-blind eyes, and feels as if her heart must break at last. How can she live on and endure such misery?
In an hour her preparations are complete, and she starts for London. A thought strikes her on her way. At the first available station she gets out and sends a telegram to Lady Etwynde, bidding her meet her at the London terminus. At the terminus her friend is waiting and Colonel Carlisle also. In a few hurried, broken words Lauraine tells them all.
"And you are actually going to him!" cried Lady Etwynde, amazed.