"Of course I shall. What else is there for me to do?"
"For the sake of your husband; for the sake of your boy——"
"It is for my own sake, Lawrence," she interrupted coldly.
"I beg your pardon. I ought to have known by this time that you would have acted for your own sake only. Victoria, it was an evil day for me when I met you; it was a worse day when I consented to a secret marriage, which was no marriage, when there was no reason for any secrecy; it was the worst day of all when I answered your letter, and came here to see you. Every day we have met has produced more recrimination. That would not have mattered, but for the mischief our meeting has wrought upon your husband. I pray that we may never in this world meet again."
He was gone, and Victoria Cassilis has not met him since, nor do I think now that she ever will meet him again.
The summer night closed in; the moonlight came up and shone upon the Park before her, laying silvery patches of light in ten of thousands upon the young leaves of the trees, and darkening the shadows a deeper black by way of contrast. They brought her tea and lights; then they came for orders. There were none; she would not go out that night. At eleven Tomlinson came.
"I want nothing, Tomlinson. You need not wait up; I shall not want you this evening."
"Yes, madam; no, madam. Mr. Cassilis is asleep, madam."
"Let some one sit up with him. See to that, Tomlinson; and don't let him be disturbed."
"I will sit up with him myself, madam." Tomlinson was anxious to get to the bottom of the thing. What mischief had been done, and how far was it her own doing? To persons who want revenge these are very important questions, when mischief has actually been perpetrated.