"Indeed, yes, sir. You know all about this letter. You stood by his elbow while he wrote--you dictated it. 'Tis _your_ new-fledged sobriety that has come between my love and me. What, after his letter of yesterday, burning with passion, he writes to-day like a schoolmaster, and preaches of repentance and the fear of a lifelong remorse. What is my remorse to him, if it ever came, when he has my love--my soul's devoted illimitable love? Why, I would hang upon the wheel beside him, hang there and suffer. I would endure the torments that slew Ravaillac, the tortures Brinvilliers suffered, for his sake; and shall I fear the scorn of a little world in which there are scarce half a dozen virtuous women? Mr. Durnford, to speak freely, since you doubtless know all that has passed between his lordship and me--I can tell you that I _have_ counted the cost, and esteem it a _bagatelle_. So I pray you take back my lord's letter, which your virtue has inspired, and bid him come to me at once. I want to see him, and not wise sentences dictated by another." "I can assure your ladyship I had no part in that letter. 'Twas my friend's own impulse moved him to write. It is by his wish I am here to bring you his farewell." "Pshaw! I tell you, sir, I see through it all. Your protestations are useless. Go and send his lordship to me this instant." "That were not easy, madam. Lord Lavendale is at his place in Surrey, thirty miles from London." "He is thirty miles off, when I have been expecting him here every moment, when I have made all my plans--looked my last at this hateful house--was ready to fling on my cloak and go with him. O, the trickster, the poltroon, to play fast and loose with the woman who loves him! Tell your master, sir, that he is no gentleman, or he would never have penned that letter." "I have no master, madam; and I protest, my friend Lavendale was never a truer gentleman than when he renounced a lady whom he adores." "I do not believe in his adoration. He has basely lied to me. It was a caprice--a transient fancy--an amusement--a wager, perhaps. Yes, a wager, like his affair with Chichinette. He has wagered a thousand or so that he would bring me to the brink of an elopement, and now he and his friends are laughing at me." "You know his heart too well to suspect him of such baseness, madam. Believe me that it is in your interest alone that letter was written. Lord Lavendale's absence to-night is the highest proof he can give you of his love--a self-sacrificing love." "He is a coward--a coward to strike such a blow! He knows how I love him." She burst into tears, and fell sobbing upon her sofa, her face hidden, her hands clasped above her head, all her body shaken by the vehemence of her grief.