“And apart from that, you made a mistake in reckoning on my sensitiveness.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what you mean by that,” she said, with frigid calm.
“Yes, you do. You thought I wouldn’t follow you to England because I should shrink from facing my mother, perhaps, and my wife’s relatives, and all the people who know what I’ve done. I don’t shrink from meeting any one, and I’ll prove it to you.”
He pulled a letter out of its envelope.
“This is from Beatrice Daventry. In it she tells me a piece of news.” (He glanced quickly over the sheets.) “My wife has got tired of leading a religious life and has left the Sisterhood in which she was, and gone to live in London. Here it is: ‘Rosamund is living once more in Great Cumberland Place with my guardian. She never goes into society, but otherwise she is leading an ordinary life. I am quite sure she will never go back to Liverpool.’—So if I go to London I may run across my wife any day. Why not?”
“You wife has left the Sisterhood!” said Mrs. Clarke slowly, forcing a sound of surprise into her husky voice.
“I’ve just told you so. You and I may meet her in London. If we do, I should think she’ll be hard put to it to recognize me. Now put on your things and we’ll be off.”
“I shall not go out to-night. I intend——”
She paused.
“What do you intend?”