The situation lasted a few seconds, then with a quick step Marcella hurried to a chair on the further side of the room, sank into it, and covered her face with her hands. Letty's heart seemed to dip, as it were, into an abyss. But there was a frenzied triumph in the spectacle of Marcella's grief and tears. _Marcella Maxwell_--thus silenced, thus subdued! The famous name, with all that it had stood for in Letty's mind, of things to be envied and desired, echoed in her ear, delighted her revenge. She struggled to maintain her attitude. "I don't know why what I said should make you so unhappy," she said coldly, after a pause. Marcella did not reply. Presently Letty saw that she was resting her cheek on her hand and gazing before her into vacancy. At last she turned round, and Letty could satisfy herself that in truth her eyes were wet. "Is there no one," asked the full, tremulous voice, "whom you care for, whom you would send for now to advise and help you?" "Thank you!" said Letty, calmly, leaning against the little writing-table, and beating the ground slightly with her foot. "I don't want them. And I don't know why you should trouble yourself about it." But for the first time, and against its owner's will, the hard tone wavered. Marcella rose impetuously again, and came towards her. "When one thinks of all the long years of married life," she said, still trembling, "of the children that may come--" Letty lifted her eyebrows. "If one happened to wish for them. But I don't happen to wish for them, never did. I daresay it sounds horrid. Anyway, one needn't take that into consideration." "And your husband? Your husband, who must be miserable, whose great gifts will be all spoiled unless you will somehow give up your anger and make peace. And instead of that, you are only thinking of revenging yourself, of making more ruin and pain. It breaks one's heart! And it would need such a _little_ effort on your part, only a few words written or spoken, to bring him back, to end all this unhappiness!" "Oh! George can take care of himself," said Letty, provokingly; "so can I. Besides, you have sent him away." Marcella looked at her in despair. Then silently she turned away, and Letty saw that she was searching for some gloves and a handkerchief she had been carrying in her hand when she came in. Letty watched her take them up, then said suddenly, "Are you going away?" "It is best, I think. I can do nothing." "I wish I knew why you came to see me at all! They say, of course, you are very much in love with Lord Maxwell. Perhaps--that made you sorry for me?" Marcella's pride leapt at the mention by those lips of her own married life. Then she drove her pride down. "You have put it better than I have been able to do, all the time." Her mouth parted in a slight, sad smile--"Good-night." Letty took no notice. She sat down on the arm of a chair near her. Her eyes suddenly blazed, her face grew dead-white.