The Lestranges put Elsa into a hansom before they hurried away in another themselves. All the guests were in a fever to depart, for there was barely time to dress for dinner--and they disappeared as if by magic. Mary, whose victoria was a moment late, followed hard on the rest. As she was delayed in the traffic she saw the hansom in front of her turn slowly round. She saw Elsa's face inside as it turned. Then the hansom went gaily jingling its bell over Westminster Bridge, and was lost in the crowd. PART III "Thou wilt not with Predestination round Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?" --OMAR KHAYYÁM. The scandal smouldered for a day or two, and then raged across London like a fire. Mary stayed at home. She could not face the glare of it. She said she was ill. Her hand shook. She started at the slightest sound. She felt shattered in mind and body. "I could not have stopped her," she said stubbornly to herself a hundred times, lying wide-eyed through the long, terrifying nights. She besieged Heaven with prayers for Elsa. On the fourth day Jos came to her. She went down to her little sitting-room, and found him standing at the open window with his back to her. She came in softly, trembling a little. She would be very gentle and sympathetic with him. She would imply no reproach. As she entered he turned slowly and faced her. The first moment she did not recognise him. Then she saw it was he. Jos' face was sunk and pinched, and the grey eyes were red with tears fiercely suppressed by day, red with hard crying by night. Now as they met hers they were fixed, unflinching in their tearless, enduring agony, like those of a man under the surgeon's knife. "Oh! Jos, don't take it so hard," said Mary, laying her hand on his arm. She had never dreamed he would feel it like this. She had thought that he would see at once he had had a great escape. He did not appear to hear her. He looked vacantly at her, and then recollected himself, and sat down by her. "You saw her last," he said, biting his lips. Mary's heart turned sick within her. "The Lestranges saw her last," she said hastily. He made an impatient movement. He knew all that. "You were with her all the afternoon on the boat?" "Yes. But, of course, there were numbers of others. I had many friends whom I had to----" "Did you notice anything? Did you have any talk with her? Was she different to usual?" "She does not generally talk much. She was rather silent." "You did not think she looked as if she had anything on her mind." "I couldn't say. I know her so very slightly." Mary's voice was cold. "She did not care for me," said Jos. "I knew that all along," and he put his scarred hand over his mouth. "She was not worthy of you." He did not hear her. He took away his hand and clenched it heavily on the other.