She sank upon one of the seats quite alone, yet within sound of the dull roar of the traffic in Kensington Gore, and taking his letter from her muff, re-read it, her vision half obscured by hot bitter tears.
“The scoundrel told such a circumstantial tale,” she murmured to herself, “that Frank has believed it without question. Yet—yet if he had come to me, and asked me, what could I have said? It was true that I stayed in that hateful place, even though against my will. Ah! I wonder what foul lies he has told against me—what—”
And hiding her face in her muff, she burst again into a flood of tears.
Her sweet, bright countenance had, alas, greatly changed in those past few weeks. Instead of bearing the stamp of inward happiness, she was now wan and pale, with thin cheeks and dark, deep-sunken eyes—the face of a woman whose heart was troubled, and who existed in terror of the future.
Both the Professor and Diamond—who was still a frequent visitor and had long conferences with her father—had noticed the change. But neither had made any remark. They attributed it to her heartfelt regret at not having raised the alarm on finding Jannaway prying into their secret.
The girl’s mind, racked by the tortures of conscience and frenzied by the cruel calumnies uttered against her, was now strained to its greatest tension. She was utterly friendless, for even her father now avoided her, and at meals treated her with a cool and studied aversion. Instead of being petted and indulged as she had been all her life, she was now shunned. He asked of her no advice, nor did he invite her to his study each evening to chat, as had been his habit ever since she had left school.
One friend she possessed in the world—“Red Mullet,” the adventurer who posed as a mining engineer! Where was he? Ay, who could tell?
“That man threatened his arrest if I did not remain silent,” she said, speaking aloud to herself, her eyes fixed upon the bare, cheerless prospect before her. “I have told the truth, and already he has carried out one of his threats. Perhaps he will carry out the other. Probably he will, and then—and then I shall lose my only friend! He may allege, too, that because ‘Red Mullet’ is my friend, he is my lover! Ah! I wonder what shameful scandal he has told Frank! I wonder! Oh! Why has Frank not come to me for an explanation for proof of those abominable lies uttered by a man whom he knows as a blackguard and a thief. It is cruel!” she sobbed, “cruel—too cruel! Ah! Frank, my own Frank, I love you with all my heart—with all my soul! You are mine, mine!” she cried, raising her clenched hands to heaven in her frenzy of despair, “and yet I have lost you—lost my father’s great secret—lost everything—everything!”
Her white lips moved, but no sound came from them. Her eyes were closed, her hands clenched tightly as there, with none to witness her agony of soul, she implored the protection of her Maker and the clemency of Providence in that, the greatest trial of all her life.
She prayed in deep earnestness for assistance and strength to withstand the evil machinations of her enemies.