She let this pass without a reply. "The doctor sees no harm," she went on, "in my being away for a few hours. Mrs. MacEdwin has offered to send me here in the evening, so that I can sleep in Kitty's room."
"You don't look well, Sydney. You are pale and worn--you are not happy.".
She began to tremble. For the second time, she turned away to take up her cloak. For the second time, he stopped her.
"Not just yet," he said. "You don't know how it distresses me to see you so sadly changed. I remember the time when you were the happiest creature living. Do you remember it, too?"
"Don't ask me!" was all she could say.
He sighed as he looked at her. "It's dreadful to think of your young life, that ought to be so bright, wasting and withering among strangers." He said those words with increasing agitation; his eyes rested on her eagerly with a wild look in them. She made a resolute effort to speak to him coldly--she called him "Mr. Linley"--she bade him good-by.
It was useless. He stood between her and the door; he disregarded what she had said as if he had not heard it. "Hardly a day passes," he owned to her, "that I don't think of you."
"You shouldn't tell me that!"
"How can I see you again--and not tell you?"
She burst out with a last entreaty. "For God's sake, let us say good-by!"
His manner became undisguisedly tender; his language changed in the one way of all others that was most perilous to her--he appealed to her pity: "Oh, Sydney, it's so hard to part with you!"
"Spare me!" she cried, passionately. "You don't know how I suffer."
"My sweet angel, I do know it--by what I suffer myself! Do you ever feel for me as I feel for you?"
"Oh, Herbert! Herbert!"
"Have you ever thought of me since we parted?"
She had striven against herself, and against him, till her last effort at resistance was exhausted. In reckless despair she let the truth escape her at last.
"When do I ever think of anything else! I am a wretch unworthy of all the kindness that has been shown to me. I don't deserve your interest; I don't even deserve your pity. Send me away--be hard on me--be brutal to me. Have some mercy on a miserable creature whose life is one long hopeless effort to forget you!" Her voice, her look, maddened him. He drew her to his bosom; he held her in his arms; she struggled vainly to get away from him. "Oh," she murmured, "how cruel you are! Remember, my dear one, remember how young I am, how weak I am. Oh, Herbert, I'm dying--dying--dying!"
Her voice grew fainter and fainter; her head sank on his breast.
He lifted her face to him with whispered words of love. He kissed her again and again.
The curtains over the library entrance moved noiselessly when they were parted. The footsteps of Catherine Linley were inaudible as she passed through, and entered the room.
She stood still for a moment in silent horror.
Not a sound warned them when she advanced. After hesitating for a moment, she raised her hand toward her husband, as if to tell him of her presence by a touch; drew it back, suddenly recoiling from her own first intention; and touched Sydney instead.
Then, and then only, they knew what had happened.
Face to face, those three persons--with every tie that had once united them snapped asunder in an instant--looked at each other.
The man owed a duty to the lost creature whose weakness had appealed to his mercy in vain. The man broke the silence.
"Catherine--"
With immeasurable contempt looking brightly out of her steady eyes, his wife stopped him.
"Not a word!"
He refused to be silent. "It is I," he said; "I only who am to blame."
"Spare yourself the trouble of ****** excuses," she answered;
"they are needless. Herbert Linley, the woman who was once your wife despises you."
Her eyes turned from him and rested on Sydney Westerfield.
"I have a last word to say to _you_. Look at me, if you can."
Sydney lifted her head. She looked vacantly at the outraged woman before her, as if she saw a woman in a dream.
With the same terrible self-possession which she had preserved from the first--standing between her husband and her governess--Mrs. Linley spoke.
"Miss Westerfield, you have saved my child's life." She paused--her eyes still resting on the girl's face. Deadly pale, she pointed to her husband, and said to Sydney: "Take him!"
She passed out of the room--and left them together.