"Was it right?" wails Lauraine, in exceeding bitterness. "He said not. He called me cold and calculating, and said I have spoilt all his life now, and he is so young, and I—— Oh, how I could love him now!"
"Hush!" whispers Lady Etwynde, gently; "you must not think of that. Right! Of course it was right, Men are so selfish, that unless a woman ruins herself for their sake they will always say she does not love. Love! Faugh, the word as they mean it is different to our interpretation. I have not patience to think of it. Love is something purer, holier, nobler than sensual gratification. It is sympathy, it is fidelity without reward; it is consecration without a vow. Did we take our teaching of it from them, Heaven help us all. Thank God, something within us helps us to the right, the pure, the better part of it. Lauraine, do not waste your pity thus. What right had he to dishonour you in your grief, your loneliness, by any such words as these? If indeed he loved you, you should have been sacred to him for your child's sake, even though he ignored your husband. Can you not see it too, dear? As for saying you have ruined his life, that is cowardly. He does not love you worthily or he would never have uttered so weak a reproach." She ceases. She feels the shudder that runs through the slender figure. She knows her words hurt and sting, but she is pained and angered and sore distressed. She feels a hatred and intolerance of Keith Athelstone's selfish passion.
"You do not know," murmurs Lauraine; "you cannot judge. Of love no one can, save just the two who love. For them it is all so different, and everything else looks of such small account."
A warm flush comes over her face; she dashes the tears away from her eyes. Lady Etwynde unloosens the clasp of her arms, and stands up, a little stern, a little troubled.
"You are right. An outsider must always take a calmer and more dispassionate view of the matter; but I hope in time you will see him as he is. Once you were married, your lives lay apart. He should not have come near you, and, from your own account, he has broken all laws of honour, and put the selfishness of passion before everything that is good and honest and pure."
"You are hard on him," says Lauraine, quietly. "You don't know him as I do. No one ever did seem to understand Keith but myself."
"He is certainly no paragon of virtue," Lady Etwynde answers, contemptuously. "But, my darling, don't let us quarrel over him. He is a man, and I know what men are when they love. As for you, you have behaved nobly, despite your pain. Believe me, the thought will bring its own comfort in time, and—you say—he will never come back again?"
"So he said."
"Has he never said that before?"
"Yes," answers Lauraine; "on my wedding-day."