‘Lucky dog! lucky dog!’ ejaculated the Baronet as he followed the other ladies from the room.
Lady Dimsdale sank into an easy-chair. ‘His wife! His wife!’ How the words kept ringing in her brain. ‘Thank heaven she came at the moment she did, and not five minutes later! And yet if she had come an hour sooner, that would have been better still. Would it? I don’t know. I cannot tell. His words were so sweet to me! Did I answer him? No. He looked into my eyes and read his answer there. And now I must never see him or think of him more! Oh, my darling—the love of my girlhood—the only love of my life—it is hard to bear, hard to bear!’ She felt as if her heart were surcharged with tears; they glistened in her eyes.
At this moment Oscar Boyd entered the room. He gave a little start when he saw who was in it. He had not expected to find her there. From the head of the staircase, just as he was on the point of coming down, he had seen his wife and Mrs Bowood enter the dining-room, and he guessed what had happened during his absence. The hard set look on his pale face softened inexpressibly as his eyes rested on Lady Dimsdale. ‘Laura!’ he said, pausing for an instant with the handle of the door in his hand.
She neither looked up nor answered him; for a moment or two she was afraid to trust either her eyes or her voice.
He shut the door, and went forward and took one of her hands. ‘Laura!’ he said again, and there was a world of tenderness in the way he pronounced that one little word.
Then she looked up, and he saw the tears shining in her eyes. ‘Oscar!—I may call you so for the last time—we ought to have parted without another word.’
‘I could not have gone away without seeing you again, if only for a few minutes.’
‘You are going away?’
‘By the next train.’
‘It is better so.’