"Cochrane, the Lady Elizabeth?" she muttered, repeating the name that had caught her eye, "How strange! What can the book have to do with Lady Betty? It must be some kind of peerage. But she is not Irish!"
To settle the question, she raised the book anew to the light, and saw that it consisted of a list of persons' names arranged in order of rank. Only--which seemed odd--all the names were ladies' names. Above Cochrane, the Lady Elizabeth, appeared Cochrane, the Lady Anne; below came Coke, the Lady Catherine, and after each name the address of the lady followed if she were a widow, of her parents or guardians if she were unmarried.
Sophia wondered idly what it meant, and with half her mind bent on the matter, the other half intent on the coming of a footstep, she turned back to the title-page of the book. She found that the fuller description there printed ran The Irish Register, or a list of the Duchess Dowagers, Countesses, Widow Ladies, Maiden Ladies, Widows, and Misses of Great Fortunes in England, as registered by the Dublin Society.
Even then she was very, very far from understanding. But the baldness of the description sent a chill through her. Misses of large fortunes in England! As fortunes went, she was a miss of large fortune. Perhaps that was why the words grated upon her; why her heart sank, and the room seemed to grow darker. Turning to look at the cover of the book, she saw a slip of paper inserted towards the end to keep a place. It projected only an eighth of an inch, but she marked it, and turned to it; something or other--it may have been only the position of the paper in that part of the book, it may have been the presence of the book in her lover's room--forewarning her; for in the act of turning the leaves, and before she came to the marker, she knew what she would find.
And she found it. First, her name, "Maitland, Miss Sophia, at the Hon. Mr. Northey's in Arlington Street". Then--yes, then, for that was not all or the worst--down the narrow margin, starting at her name, ran a note, written faintly, in a hand she knew; the same hand that had penned her one love letter, the hand from which the quill had fallen in the rapture of anticipation, the hand of her "humble, adoring lover, Hector, Count Plomer"!
She knew that the note would tell her all, and for a moment her courage failed her; she dared not read it. Her averted eyes sought instead the cupboard in the lower wainscot, which she had fancied the hiding place of the Jacobite cipher, the muniment chest where lay, intrusted to his honour, the lives and fortunes of the Beauforts and Ormondes, the Wynns and Cottons and Cecils. Was the cupboard that indeed? Or--what was it? The light reflected from the surface of the panels told her nothing, and she lowered the book and stood pondering. If the note proved to be that which she still shrank from believing it, what had she done? Or rather, what had she not done? What warnings had she not despised, what knowledge had she not slighted, what experience had she not overridden? How madly, how viciously, in the face of advice, in the face of remonstrance, in modesty's own despite, had she wrought her confusion, had she flung herself into the arms of this man! This man who--but that was the question!
She asked herself trembling, was he what this book seemed to indicate, or was he what she had thought him? Was he villain, or hero? Fortune-hunter, or her true lover? The meanest of tricksters, or the high-spirited, chivalrous gentleman, laughing at danger and smiling at death, in whom great names and a great cause were content to place their trust?
At last she nerved herself to learn the answer to the question. The wicks of the candles were burning long; she snuffed them anew, and holding the book close to the light, read the words that were delicately traced beside her name.
"Has 6000 guineas charged on T. M.'s estate. If T. M. marries without consent of guardians has £10,000 more. Mrs. N. the same. T. is at Cambridge, aged eighteen. To make all sure, T. must be married first--query Oriana, if she can be found? Or Lucy Slee--but boys like riper women. Not clinch with S. M. until T. is mated, nor at all if the little Cochrane romp (page 7) can be brought to hand. But I doubt it, but S. M. is an easy miss, and swallows all. A perfect goose."
Sophia sat awhile in a chair and shivered, her face white, her head burning. The words were so clear that, the initials notwithstanding, it was not possible to misinterpret them; or to set on them any construction save one. They cut her as the lash of a whip cuts the bare flesh. It was for this--thing that she had laid aside her maiden pride, had risked her good name, had scorned her nearest, had thrown away all in life that was worth keeping! It was for this creature, this thing in the shape of man, that she had over-leapt the bounds, had left her home, had risked the perils of the streets, and the greater perils of his company. For this--but she had not words adequate to the loathing of her soul. Outraged womanhood, wounded pride, contemned affection--which she had fancied love--seared her very soul. She could have seen him killed, she could have killed him with her own hand--or she thought she could; so completely in a moment was her liking changed to hatred, so completely destroyed on the instant was the trust she had placed in him.