He would have the best of
everything - society, clubs, sport. Now all these were barred
against him. If he had reappeared he could not have shown his face
in Pall Mall, or on the racecourses, and every moment of his life
would be full of humiliations and bitterness. Virtually then, for
such a man as he was, life in England was over. Then there was you.
You were a pretty child and the Earl had no children. If your
father was dead the story would be forgotten, you would marry
brilliantly and an ugly page in the family history would be blotted
out. That was how they looked at it - it was how they put it to
your father."
"He consented?"
"Yes, he consented! He saw the wisdom of it for your sake, for the
sake of the family, even for his own sake. The Earl settled an
income upon him and he left England secretly on the morning of his
release. We had the news of his death only a week or two ago."
She stood up, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched together.
"I thank God," she said "that I have found the courage to break
away from those people and take a little of my life into my own
hands. You can tell them this if you will, Cecil, - my uncle Lord
Davenant, your mother, and whoever had a say in this miserable
affair. Tell them from me that I know the truth and that they are
a pack of cowardly, unnatural old women.
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