“There is nothing more we can do to-day,” he said, speaking evenly, almost coldly, when they reached the corner of the street. “I will see Father Cruse to-night and tell him of your kindness, and he can decide as to what is to be done. And if you do not mind, I will leave you.” She stood and watched him as he disappeared in the throng. She understood her dismissal and was not offended. It was not her secret and she had no right to interfere or even to advise. When he was ready he would tell her. Until that time she would wait with her hands held out. Felix crossed the street, halted for an instant as if uncertain as to his course, and turned toward the river. He wanted to be alone, and the crowd gave him a greater sense of isolation. It was the first time in months that he had tramped the thoroughfares without some definite object in view. All that was now a thing of the past, never to be revived. His quest was finished. The interview with the sergeant had ended it all. Every item in his detailed account of the woman now in the Tombs tallied with Kitty's description of the woman with the sleeve-buttons and so on, in turn, with the woman who was once his wife. With this knowledge there flamed up in his heart an uncontrollable anger, fanned to white heat by hatred of the man who had caused it all. His fingers tightened and his teeth ground together. That reckoning, he said to himself, would come later, once he got his hands on him. If she were a thief, Dalton had made her so. If she were an outcast and a menace to society, Dalton had done it. By what hellish process, he could not divine, knowing Lady Barbara as he did, but the fact was undeniable. What then was he to do? Go back to London and leave her, or stay here and fight on in the effort to save her? SAVE HER! Who could save her? She had stolen the goods; been arrested with them in her possession; was in the Tombs; and, in a few weeks, would be lost to the world for a term of years. He could even now see the vulgar, leering crowd; watch the jury, picked from the streets, file in and take their seats; hear the few, curt, routine words, cold as bullets, drop from the lips of the callous judge, the frail, desolate woman deserted by every soul, paying the price without murmur or protest--glad that the end had come. And then, with one of those tricks that memory sometimes plays, he saw the altar-rail, where he had stood beside her--she in her bridal robes, her soft blue eyes turned toward his; he heard again the responses, “for better or for worse”--“until death do us part,” caught the scent of flowers and the peal of the organ as they turned and walked down the aisle, past the throng of richly dressed guests. “Great God!” he choked, worming his way through the crowd, unconscious of his course, unmindful of his steps, oblivious to passers-by--alone with an agony that scorched his very soul. Chapter XXII