Читать книгу Two, by Tricks. A Novel онлайн

16 страница из 44

'Nothing,' she replied in a flat tuneless tone, 'nothing.'

'I thought, my dear, from your looks, that a hawk might have dropped down into the dovecot; but you are very young and very sensitive, my poor child; in a few years you will learn to treat any little temporary storms with proper unconcern.' And then the carriages were signalled, and the ladies took their departure.

On reaching home, Lady Forestfield, with a passing glance into the dining-room, where the table was set out for supper, went straight to her room, and dismissing her maid as soon as possible, threw herself in her peignoir into a low chair near the window overlooking the Park, and gave herself up to thought.

'Forestfield knows all!' Those words were her social death-knell, ringing out farewell to friends, to position, to hope, almost to life; for what would life be to her without the surroundings in which she had revelled, and which were about to be ruthlessly cut away? Was there the remotest chance of escape? Could there be any possible motive by which her husband, cognisant of her crime, would consent to condone it? Of his own irregularities since their marriage, common and manifold as they were, she had long since been made aware, and had suffered them in silence. Might not he, in simplest justice to her, do likewise? He knew all; but none else, save the creatures in his employ, whose silence was as easily purchased as their espionage. He had been with her but five minutes before De Tournefort had told her the fatal news, and his manner, as ordinarily, was cold and cynically polite. She had seen him very different at times when she had unwittingly given him trivial cause for offence, when he had cursed and sworn, and once seized her arm and wrenched it round so violently that for weeks she had borne the blue impress of his fingers. Surely De Tournefort must have been misinformed. Surely, if Richard knew his disgrace, he would have avoided her in public; and when they met in private would have wreaked his wrath upon her, as he had done for far more venial matters.


Правообладателям