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Those feelings were played out now, but at one time they had been all-powerful, and the mere recollection of them had a softening and humanising effect upon the wretched girl as she sat, her elbows resting on her knees, the lower part of her face buried in her hands, looking out across the road dotted with lamps and echoing the rattle of an occasional carriage, to the park beyond, where the big trees bent whisperingly to each other, and beckoned solemnly like dim gigantic spectres.

Suddenly a terror seized her. What Gustave had said must be true; he would never have dared to trifle with her on such a subject. They had been watched, and her husband knew all! Her husband would come home--he was on his way thither at that moment perhaps--and in his wild ungovernable fury he might murder her. Even if her life were spared it would be rendered desolate; she would be driven forth from her home, and left to fight her way in the world alone, without friends or resources.

Then there arose suddenly in her mind a scene which she had witnessed during the previous autumn, when she and Lord Forestfield were travelling in Germany. They were travelling from Ischl to Salzburg, and at the driver's request halted midway that he might bait his horses. A kermesse was being held in the little village, and amongst the numerous carts gathered together before the inn-door was a travelling-carriage, from which the horses had been removed. It was, however, still occupied, and nestled into one corner under the hood May Forestfield had made out the dim outline of a female form. The courier attached to this carriage, of course making friends and drinking with the Forestfields' courier, told him that the lady whom he was taking to Ischl was an Englishwoman, and very ill, so ill that the baths and waters of Ischl had been prescribed for her as a last resource. Lady Forestfield, hearing this from her maid, inquired the name of the lady, which in the courier's mouth was unintelligible; but May, learning that the invalid was alone, and all but unattended, acting under the kindly impulsive wish to be of some use, she scarcely knew how, made her way to the side of the carriage, and in her sweet tone spoke a few words of sympathy. The invalid, who had been lying huddled in the corner, turned quickly at the sound of the voice; and worn and ghastly as was her face, Lady Forestfield recognised her in an instant as Fanny Erle, an intimate acquaintance, who two years before had fled from her husband's roof, and had since been divorced. Some one else had recognised her at the same moment--Lord Forestfield, who, following his wife, had a look over her shoulder and instantly divined what had taken place. Mrs. Erle, on whose pale cheeks two bright red spots suddenly appeared, would have spoken; but Lord Forestfield, seizing his wife by the shoulder, hurried her away, and peremptorily insisted on her making no farther attempt to see the wretched woman again, speaking of her crime with the bitterest reprobation, and of the punishment which had fallen upon her with genuine contemptuous approbation.