"Is it?" she says, with a quietly enraging smile; having that confidence in the shield of womanhood, which makes so many a woman gall a man to the uttermost, and expect him to stand by, serene, polite, and smiling. "Unfortunately," she continues, "I am behind the spirit of the age; I am shackled with obsolete old notions of propriety and decency; and therefore--as you have no longer any smallest control over my actions--will you be so good as to allow me to go?" He drops her hand instantly, and, opening the door for her, bows his head haughtily, saying, "Go! I have neither the wish nor the power to detain you;" and as he so speaks she passes out. Meanwhile Esther, having slidden from her bed, stands with trembling limbs, grasping the back of a chair, and gazing from speaker to speaker with a world of surprise and horror in her great innocent eyes. As Miss Blessington leaves the room, St. John turns to her: "My darling!" he says, with an accent of passionate remorse, "how will you ever forgive me for having exposed you to this!" She turns away from him, and covers her burning face with her hands. "Go!" she says, faintly--"go, this minute! Don't say another word! Don't give her any more reason for her wicked slanders! Go!" And he goes. CHAPTER XL. Of the three persons whose repose has been disturbed by the amours of Thomas the footman, only one is able to take up again the thread of interrupted slumber. Miss Blessington, having returned to her chamber, and having meditated calmly for a quarter of an hour on the knot in her destiny she has just untied, and having given one great sigh to the memory of the Gerard diamonds, lays down her golden scented head on her pillow again, and sleeps the sleep of the just. Miss Blessington has well nigh mastered the secret of eternal youth and perennial beauty--incapacity for feeling any emotion. It is hardly likely that the god Sleep, who loves a quiet house, will visit two such unquiet temples as the brains of St. John and Esther: he goes away from them utterly, taking his gentle poppyheads with him. St. John walks miles and miles up and down his bedroom carpet, pondering, deeply and vexedly, not on what his own course of conduct shall be--_that_ he is already determined upon--but on what effect Miss Blessington's coldly sceptical reception of his wildly improbable yet true tale is likely to have upon Esther.