He paused a second time. There was no answer. The diplomatist had thought better of his thirst for fraternal retribution. “Why should I get myself into a mess about the beggar?” he thought; “he wouldn’t see _me_ out of a scrape, I dare say.” So Francis departed unquestioned: not to return to the Stuccoville mansion, but to walk up Southampton Street, and across Covent Garden, to seek a shelter in the old lodgings where he had lived so pleasantly in his bachelor days. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXVI. POOR FRANK’S LETTER. Maude shut herself in her own rooms after her interview with Francis, and refused to see any one except Julia. She wanted some one to cling to in her sudden distress, and was fain to throw herself upon the Irish girl’s bosom for consolation. Then Julia Desmond had her revenge. It was very sweet to see the woman who had usurped the cup of prosperity once held to her own lips brought down so low; more wretched in the midst of her wealth and grandeur than Julia had been in her lonely attic at Bayswater, with a July sun glaring in upon her through a curtainless window, and the drowsy voices of her pupils droning in her ears. The pleasure that thrilled through her breast as she held Maude Tredethlyn in her arms, and heard her declare, amidst passionate sobs, that Francis had been false and base and wicked, and that she was the most miserable woman in the world, was a sensation more exquisite than Miss Desmond had ever known before. For the honour of humanity, that wicked pleasure did not last very long. The daughter of Patrick Macnamara Ryan O’Brien Desmond was not altogether base. Maude was at her feet, and she was avenged. It was her rival’s insolent happiness--happiness always _does_ seem insolent to the unhappy--that had galled her to the quick. The two women were on a level now, and Julia forgave her old companion. “I told you he was a villain,” she said; and that was the only unkind speech she uttered. After that, she was comforter, confidante, friend, and she was almost sorry to see the endurance of Maude’s grief. “You have your fine house and your carriages still,” she said, as the young wife sat on the ground at her feet in the abandonment of her sorrow; “you could never have married Francis Tredethlyn for any other reason than the wealth he could give you. What does it matter to you whether he is true or false? You never loved him.” “No,” answered Maude, naïvely, “I suppose not. But it is so shameful of him to care for anybody else. And from what Harcourt Lowther says, he does care for that horrible person; and to leave me, Julia, day after day, and to be--there--all the time--in a garden--smoking--looking as much at home as if he had lived there all his life--I never can forgive him, Julia!”