She pined to see the man whom in her own heart she accused herself of having deceived; yet she dreaded the hour when she should stand face to face with him. Alas! how could she look into his eyes--eyes that she feared would look back but sternly upon her--and plead for forgiveness, remembering that, had she but trusted and believed in him, they who now met as strangers would by this time have been man and wife a twelvemonth. Yet, it was not only to gratify her own desire to once more touch his hand and hear his voice, even though that voice should reproach her, that she desired to see him. It was also to save him, since he would leave the country, he had said, after they had once met. So, at last, she decided it should be so. She would see him once, would take his pardon from his own lips--Sholto had said that he forgave her--and then she would bid him go and consult nothing but his own safety and that of his true and tried friend. She took the pen in her hand again and drew the paper towards her, but, at first, she knew not what to say. In the previous letter she had sent him the words and ideas had come easily enough, for then she was writing a straightforward narrative with, in it, a sad plea for forgiveness. But now it was different. She was making an assignation with a man she had once loved--once!--she was deceiving her husband. "Bah!" she said, as this thought rose to her mind. "If 'tis deception let it be so. Out of his deceit to me is borne mine to him." Whereon once more she pondered a moment on what she should say, and then wrote: "Lady Fordingbridge will be at the masquerade at Vauxhall to-morrow night. May she hope she will hear none but gentle words there?" That was all. CHAPTER VII. "THE BIRD THAT DANCED THE RIGADOON."