“Yes, who?” inquired Mrs. Herbert. “The ice has gone, and the skate-marks are melted; there is no track on the water.”
“I hear Herbert has gone to Cairo,” said Mr. Wainbridge.
“Has he?” asked Launa. “How horrible for you.”
It is a wife’s duty to feel horribly something at her husband’s departure for Egypt or Hong-Kong, and Launa expressed the proper sympathy in her voice.
“He did not tell you?” asked Mrs. Herbert.
“No,” answered Launa.
“He did,” said Mrs. Herbert, with some excitement.
She had refused tea.
There was silence. Mr. Wainbridge glanced at Launa. His look infuriated Mrs. Herbert, whose anger threatened to become quite beyond her power of control.
“I came to-day, Launa, to tell you that I will no longer know you. You have poisoned my husband’s mind against me, and a girl who goes to the country and stays alone there with a man, under his name, as his—well, I leave the name to you.”