‘It was to tell it to you that I asked you to favour me with your presence here. Lady Dimsdale, my one condition is this: That when this man—this Mr Oscar Boyd—shall be free to marry again, as he certainly will be when my secret becomes known to him—you shall never consent to become his wife, and that you shall never reveal to him the reason why you decline to do so.’
‘Oh! This to me! Sir Frederick Pinkerton, you have no right to assume—— Nothing, nothing can justify this language!’
He thought he had never seen her look so beautiful as she looked at that moment, with flashing eyes, heaving bosom, and burning cheeks.
He bowed and spread out his hands deprecatingly. ‘Pardon me, but I have assumed nothing—nothing whatever. I have specified a certain condition as the price of my secret. Call that condition a whim—the whim of an eccentric elderly gentleman, who, having no wife to keep him within the narrow grooves of common-sense, originates many strange ideas at times. Call it by what name you will, Lady Dimsdale, it still remains what it was. To apply a big word to a very small affair—you have heard my ultimatum.’ He glanced at his watch again. ‘I shall be in the library for the next quarter of an hour. One word from you—Yes or No—and I shall know how to act. On that one word hangs the future of your friend, Mr Oscar Boyd.’ He saluted her with one of his most ceremonious bows, and then turned and walked slowly away.
There was a garden-seat close by, and to this Lady Dimsdale made her way. She was torn by conflicting emotions. Indignation, grief, wonder, curiosity, each and all held possession of her. ‘Was ever a woman forced into such a cruel position before?’ she asked herself. ‘What can this secret be? Is that woman not his wife? Yet Oscar recognised her as such the moment he set eyes on her. Can it be possible that she had a husband living when he married her, and that Sir Frederick is aware of the fact? It is all a mystery. Oh, how cruel, how cruel of Sir Frederick to force me into this position! What right has he to assume that even if Oscar were free to-morrow, he would—— And yet—— Oh, it is hard—hard! Why has this task been laid upon me? He will be free, and yet he must never know by what means. But whose happiness ought I to think of first—his or my own? His—a thousand times his! There is but one answer possible, and Sir Frederick knows it. He understands a woman’s heart. I must decide at once—now. There is not a moment to lose. But one answer.’ Her eyes were dry, although her heart was full of anguish. Tears would find their way later on.
She quitted her seat, and near the end of the walk she found the same gardener that the Baronet had made use of. She beckoned the man to her, and as she slipped a coin into his hand, said to him: ‘Go to Sir Frederick Pinkerton, whom you will find in the library, and say to him that Lady Dimsdale’s answer is “Yes.”’
The man scratched his head and stared at her open-mouthed; so, for safety’s sake, she gave him the message a second time. Then he seemed to comprehend, and touching his cap, set off at a rapid pace in the direction of the house.
Lady Dimsdale took the same way slowly, immersed in bitter thoughts. ‘Farewell, Oscar, farewell!’ her heart kept repeating to itself. ‘Not even when you are free, must you ever learn the truth.’
Meanwhile, Mrs Boyd, after lunching heartily with kind, chatty Mrs Bowood to keep her company, and after arranging her toilet, had gone back to the room in which her husband had left her, and from which he had forbidden her to stir till his return. She was somewhat surprised not to find him there, but quite content to wait till he should think it well to appear. There was a comfortable-looking couch in the room, and after a hearty luncheon on a warm day, forty winks seem to follow as a natural corollary; at least that was Estelle’s view of the present state of affairs. But before settling down among the soft cushions of the couch, she went up to the glass over the chimney-piece, and taking a tiny box from her pocket, opened it, and, with the swan’s-down puff which she found therein, just dashed her cheeks with the faintest possible soupçon of Circassian Bloom, and then half rubbed it off with her handkerchief.
‘A couple of glasses of champagne would have saved me the need of doing this; but your cold thin claret has neither soul nor fire in it,’ she remarked to herself. ‘How comfortable these English country-houses are. I should like to stay here for a month. Only the people are so very good and, oh! so very stupid, that I know I should tire of them in a day or two, and say or do something that would make them fling up their hands in horror.’ She yawned, gave a last glance at herself, and then went and sat down on the couch. As she was re-arranging the pillows, she found a handkerchief under one of them. She pounced on it in a moment. In one corner was a monogram. She read the letters, ‘L. D.,’ aloud. ‘My Lady Dimsdale’s, without a doubt,’ she said. ‘Damp, too. She has been crying for the loss of her darling Oscar.’ She dropped the handkerchief with a sneer and set her foot on it. ‘How sweet it is to have one’s rival under one’s feet—sweeter still, when you know that she loves him and you don’t! Lady Dimsdale will hardly care to let Monsieur Oscar kiss her again. He is going away on a long journey with his wife—with his wife, ha, ha! Fools! If they only knew!’ The echo of her harsh, unwomanly laugh had scarcely died away, when the door opened, and the man of whom she had been speaking stood before her.