“You can tell everybody, if you please,” said Mrs Winterbourn, freeing herself from the clasping arms and rising up in her stiff crape. “He had a great sense of justice. He doesn’t say I’m to wear weeds all my life. I think I mean to come back to Grosvenor Square on Monday, and perhaps give a ball or two, and some dinners, to celebrate--for I have come into my fortune, don’t you see?” she said, with an unmoved face. “Hush, dear--hush! You must not talk like that,” Lady Markham said, holding her arm. “Why not! Justice is justice, whether for him or me. I was such a fool as to be wretched when he was dying, because---- But it appears that there was no love lost--no love and no faith lost. He did not believe in me, any more than I believed in him. I outwitted him when he was living, and he outwits me when he is dead. Do you hear, Frances?--that is how things go. If you do as I did, as I hear you are going to do---- Oh, do it if you please; I will never interfere. But make up your mind to this--he will have his revenge on you--or justice; it is all the same thing. Good-bye, Lady Markham. I hope you will countenance me at my first ball--for now I have come into my fortune, I mean to enjoy myself. Don’t you think these things are rather becoming? I mean to wear them out. They will make a sensation at my parties,” she said, and for the first time laughed aloud. “This is just the first wounded feeling,” said Lady Markham. “O Nelly, you must not fly in the face of Society. You have always been so good. No, no; let us think it over. Perhaps we can find a way out of it. There is bound to be a flaw somewhere.” “Good-bye,” said Nelly. “I have not fixed on the day for my first At Home; but the invitations will be out directly. Good-bye, Frances. You must come--and Sir Thomas. It will be a fine lesson for Sir Thomas.” She walked across the room to the door, and there stood for a moment, looking back. She looked taller, almost grand in still fury and despair with her immovable face. But as she stood there, a faint softening came to the marble. “Tell Geoff--gently,” she said, and went away. They could hear the soft sweep of her black robes retiring down the stair, and then the door opening, the clang of the carriage. Lady Markham had dropped into a chair in her dismay, and sat with her hands clasped and her eyes wide open, listening to these sounds, as if they might throw some light on the situation. The consequences which might follow from Nelly’s freedom had been heavy on her heart; and it was possible that by-and-by this strange news might bring the usual comfort; but in the meantime, consternation overwhelmed her. “As long as she remains his widow!” she said to herself in a tone of horror, as the tension of her nerves yielded and the carriage drove away. “And how am I to tell him--gently; how am I to tell him gently?” she cried. It was as if a great catastrophe had overwhelmed the house.