Late though the hour--the first of morning--he proceeded at once to his wife's dressing-room, where she was awaiting his return in a charming blue robe that made her fair beauty look more charming still, for there were colour and brightness in her face and a love-light in her eyes at his approach, till the abruptness of his entrance and the set sternness of his white visage startled her. "Philip!" "Can it be true what I have heard to-night, Laura, that you loved Westbrook, of the Hussars," he demanded, "and, while loving him, married me for my money, and what I might do for the old Vicar and his sons? Is it truth that, when he gave you to me at the altar of yonder church, your marriage vow was a black lie and your false heart teemed with love for another? Speak!" he thundered out; but she could only lift her timid eyes to him imploringly, and spread her little white hands in deprecation of the coming malediction. Her voice was gone. "Your silence affirms all I have heard," he continued, in accents that trembled with jealousy and sorrow. "Oh, God, what a fool and dupe I have been!" "I know not what you have heard, Philip; but, as He hears me, I have been a true and faithful wife to you." "In playing a part you did not feel," he cried scornfully, "but I will aid your play no more. From this hour we meet never again on earth. Here, in this house, for which you sold yourself, I shall leave you, with all its luxuries, till such time as a more regular separation can be brought about; and the sole sorrow of my heart is now, that I cannot leave you free to wed this fellow Westbrook, the cause of all your incompatibility and coldness to me." He flung away, and left her in a gust of fury. "Philip, Philip!" she exclaimed, but she heard the hall door close; and then, as his steps died away in the distance, she fell on the floor, overcome by her sudden and terrible emotions--startled, shocked, and conscience-stricken. CHAPTER IV. Days passed on--days of sorrow, anxiety, and futile watching for a footfall that came no more. Whither he had gone she knew not, nor could she discover, and she was left to her tears and unavailing grief, amid the splendour of Craybourne Hall. She saw now how erring she had been; that, while nursing a mere fancy, she had lost the true love of a good and generous man, whose last words had been the first harsh ones he had ever addressed to her. Gone! gone! She felt how much she really loved him now, and all the more that a secret tie was coming, and must come ere Christmas, to bind them stronger together. She must let him know of this dear hope; but how? _Where_ had he gone? To death, perhaps, and she might have a child in her bosom that Philip could never, never see!