"You must choose your own way of life, of course," said Lady Winsleigh coldly. "But you draw rather foolish comparisons, Thelma. There is a wide difference between Mary Anderson and Violet Vere. Besides, Mr. Lovelace is a bachelor,--he can do as he likes and go where he likes without exciting comment. However, whether you are angry with me or not, I feel I should not be your true friend if I did not show you--this. You know your husband's writing!"
And she drew out the fatal letter, and continued, watching her victim as she spoke, "This was sent by Sir Philip to Violet Vere last night,--she gave it to me herself this morning."
Thelma's hand trembled as she took the paper.
"Why should I read it?" she faltered mechanically.
Lady Winsleigh raised her eyebrows and frowned impatiently.
"Why--why? Because it is your duty to do so! Have you no pride? Will you allow your husband to write such a letter as that to another woman,--and such a woman too! without one word of remonstrance? You owe it to yourself--to your own sense of honor--to resent and resist such treatment on his part! Surely the deepest love cannot pardon deliberate injury and insult."
"My love can pardon anything," answered the girl in a low voice, and then slowly, very slowly, she opened the folded sheet--slowly she read every word it contained,--words that stamped themselves one by one on her bewildered brain and sent it reeling into darkness and vacancy. She felt sick and cold--she stared fixedly at her husband's familiar handwriting. "A man who has loved and who loves you still, and who without you is utterly weary and broken-hearted!"
Thus he wrote of himself to--to Violet Vere! It seemed incredible--yet it was true! She heard a rushing sound in her ears--the room swung round dizzily before her eyes--yet she sat, still, calm and cold, holding the letter and speaking no word.
Lady Winsleigh watched her, irritated at her passionless demeanor.
"Well!" she exclaimed at last. "Have you nothing to say?"
Thelma looked up, her eyes burning with an intense feverish light.
"Nothing!" she replied.
"Nothing?" repeated her ladyship with emphatic astonishment.
"Nothing against Philip," continued the girl steadily. "For the blame is not his, but mine! That he is weary and broken-hearted must be my fault--though I cannot yet understand what I have done. But it must be something, because if I were all that he wished he would not have grown so tired." She paused and her pale lips quivered. "I am sorry," she went on with dreamy pathos, "sorrier for him than for myself, because now I see I am in the way of his happiness." A quiver of agony passed over her face,--she fixed her large bright eyes on Lady Winsleigh, who instinctively shrank from the solemn speechless despair of that penetrating gaze.