meet her everywhere; very
beautiful; very young; only married for three years; a heartless,
rapacious creature. Hugh has nearly ruined himself in paying her
jeweller's bills and her debts at bridge. And already she has thrown him
over. It happened only the other day. I knew it was happening when I saw
him here. I was glad, Amabel; I longed for him to suffer; and he will.
He is a libertine of most fastidious tastes and he will not find many
more young and beautiful women, of his world, to run risks for him. He,
too, is getting old. And he has gone through nearly all his own
money--and yours. Things will soon be over for him.--Oh--but--I love
him--I love him--and everything is over for me.--How can I bear it!"

She bent forward on her knees and convulsive sobs shook her.

Her words seemed to Amabel to come to her from a far distance; they
echoed in her, yet they were not the words she could have used. How dim
was her own love-dream beside this torment of dispossession.
What--who--had she loved for all these years? She could not touch or see
her own grief; but Lady Elliston's grief pierced through her. She leaned
towards her and softly touched her shoulder, her arm, her hand; she held
the hand in hers. The sight of this loss of strength and dignity was an
actual pain; her own pain was something elusive and unsubstantial; it
wandered like a ghost vainly seeking an embodiment.

"Oh, you angel--you poor angel!" moaned Lady Elliston. "There: that's
enough of crying; it can't bring back my youth.--What a fool I am. If
only I could learn to think of myself as free instead of maimed and left
by the wayside. It is hard to live without love if one has always had
it.--But I have freed you, Amabel. I am glad of that. It has been a
cruel, but a right thing to do. He shall not come to you with his
shameless love; he shall not come between you and your boy. You shan't
misplace your worship so. It is Augustine who is beautiful and noble; it
is Augustine who loves you. You aren't maimed and forsaken; thank heaven
for that, dear."

Lady Elliston had risen. Strong again, she faced her life, took up the
reins, not a trace of scruple or of shame about her. It did not enter
her mind to ask Amabel for forgiveness, to ask if she were despised or
shrunk from: it did not enter Amabel's mind to wonder at the omission.
She looked up at her guest and her lifted face seemed that of the
drowned creature floating to the surface of the water.

"Tell