The answer to her own question was as a blow, so sharp, so cruel. She closed her eyes faint and sick. "He knew about _us_," she thought. "He said--’your lover, Lord Vansittart.’ He meant to get a divorce--because of him. He would have sworn to lies, very likely. He would have got ’damages’--a decree--and after he had disgraced me for ever, would have made that girl his wife! Oh--his death has been a mercy to every one--may God grant it has been a mercy to him!" As soon as she was equal to the effort of walking--for she felt unsteady and giddy even then--she left the newspaper on the seat on which she had sat to read her fate, and making her way out of the Park, took a cab home, and entered without, she believed, being unduly observed. She found that her uncle had lunched at his club, and her aunt was in her room, so, joining Lady Thorne in her boudoir, where she was lying comfortably tucked up on a sofa, she excused her absence very casually. She had been detained shopping, had lunched out, had attended service in the Abbey. Lady Thorne smiled indulgently. "Of course, of course, my dear!" she interrupted. "But I am glad you are in. Violette has sent home one of your _trousseau_ evening frocks. It is a poet’s dream--pink embroidered roses, and a bouquet of pink roses has come from the Duchess with a little note--they decorate with roses to-night in your honour! I want you to wear that frock. It would make such a nice paragraph in the society papers, and encourage Violette to exert her utmost with the rest of the wedding order." Joan went upstairs, wondering what it meant--this sudden flow of sunshine. As she inspected the dress--an exquisite _confection_ of pale pink and white shot tissue, embroidered with clusters of La France roses with so cunning a hand that the blossoms looked almost real--she wondered what she would have felt, arraying herself in that gala attire, yesterday. "My dark, darkest of dark nights, seems over, thank Heaven!" she told herself as she went down later on, radiant, to the drawing-room to receive her lover. As she opened the door, she saw him standing as if lost in anxious thought. He sprang towards her with a puzzled, astounded gaze. "How lovely you look! But--but--oh, darling, how thankful I am to see you look almost happy for once!" he passionately exclaimed, as he kissed her--hands, brow, lips--with the tender reverence which made her almost worship him in return. "But--oh, something must have happened to please you! Tell me, Joan, do not let us have any secrets from each other!" "You shall know to-night--at the dance," she said. The dance was given by the Duchess of Arran. CHAPTER XXIV