CHAPTER V
THE GREAT QUIETUS
“It’s terrible! It’s unspeakable!” I groaned, on arising next morning, as I thought of the events of the night before. “That poor girl, so good, so sweet! And to think that she should suffer so—through me, through me.”
There was a knock at the door, and Lorrimer appeared. “It’s horrible! It’s unthinkable!” he moaned. “Poor Rougette, who never harmed a living soul. And to think that I should have brought this calamity upon her.”
“It’s my fault,” I objected; “I introduced Lucretia to you.”
“No, no; it’s my fault,” he insisted. “I trifled with the girl’s feelings.”
“Well, any way,” I said, “what are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I’d marry her,” I suggested. “But I can’t, being married already.”
“I’ll marry her,” cried Lorrimer. “You know, last night on the way to the hospital, when I saw that beautiful face covered with those hideous bandages, I wept like a child. She told me not to mind. It was not my fault. She would enter a convent, become a nun. Just fancy, Madden, that lovely face eaten to the bone, a horrible sight....”
“Perhaps it won’t be so bad, old chap. Perhaps she’s only burned on one side; then the other side of her face will still be beautiful.”