She quitted the room, condescending to give no farewell to either of those she left in it, and followed in the steps of Mr. Lake, who was already on his way to the station, buttoning his coat as he went, taking care not to catch him up. On the platform, as the train was dashing in, he spoke to her. "Your accusations have been harsh, Mary." "What has your conduct been?" she sharply retorted. "I loved your wife, and I feel her unhappy fate as keenly as though it had fallen on one of my own sisters. The world may spare you; it may flatter and caress you, for it is wonderfully tender to these venial sins of conduct; but you cannot recall to life her whom you vowed before God to love and to cherish." "Step in. The train is going." "Not into that carriage--with you. Others are in it, and I might be saying things that they would stare at. My temper is up, today." "First class, miss?" cried an impatient porter "There's only that there one first-class carriage on." And Mary Jupp walked away; opened the door of another, which was a third-class, and took her seat in it. Thus they reached Katterley. Mr. Lake came to the carriage to assist her out, but she simply put his arm away. Her face looked awfully severe as the gaslights fell upon it. "One moment," he said, arresting her as she was passing. "I do not know what turn your suspicions can have taken; a very free one, as it seems to me. Let me assure you that you are mistaken. On my word of honour as a man there has been nothing; nothing wrong. In justice to Lady Ellis I am bound to say this." "Justice to Lady Ellis! Don't talk to me about justice to Lady Ellis," was the young lady's retort. Her temper, as she said, was up, that day. "Think of justice to your wife, rather. You are either a fool or a knave, sir." "Thank you, Miss Jupp." "Nothing wrong!" she repeated, returning to the charge. "I don't know what you mean. What do you call wrong? You have been tied to that woman's skirts these five months; lavishing your money and your time upon her; and leaving your wife alone to die. If that's not wrong, I should like to know what is." He made no reply; almost too confounded to do it. "I don't blame you, Robert Lake, as much as I blame them," she took occasion to say as they were parting. "You are a vain, thoughtless, empty-headed fellow, made so, I believe, by your enforced idleness; and they, those two women, are old and crafty. Mrs. Chester was serving her self-interest; the other her unjustifiable woman's vanity. You yielded yourself a willing prisoner to the birdlime spread under your feet, and now your folly has come home with interest. _I_ saw your wife was dying of the pain, if you did not." Without another word, whether of adieu or apology, she brushed past him up the street; and Mr. Lake turned to his home, something like a beaten dog that dare not lift its tail from between its legs. CHAPTER XI. The Dream worked out.