"Think, then,
should I yield to the influence of your beauty, and sink your
respected name to a level with those"--and he pointed to a group of
wretched women assembled at the corner of Pall-Mall. "Think, where
would be the price of your innocence? I being no longer worthy of
your esteem, you would hate yourself; and we should continue
together, two guilty creatures, abhorring each other, and justly
despised by a virtuous world."
Lady Sara sat as one dumb, and did not inarticulate any sound--except
the groan of horror which had shot through her when she had glanced
at those women--until the coach stopped in James's Place.
"Go in with me," were all the words she could utter, while, pulling
her veil over her face, she gave him her hand to assist her down the
steps.
"Is Captain Ross arrived?" asked Thaddeus of a servant, who, to his
great joy, replied in the negative. During the drive, he had alarmed
himself by anticipating the disagreeable suspicions which might rise
in the mind of the husband should he see his wife in her present
strange and distracted state.
When Thaddeus seated Lady Sara in her drawing room, he offered to
take a respectful leave; but she laid one hand on his arm, whilst
with the other she covered her convulsed features, and said,
"Constantine, before you go, before we part perhaps eternally, O!
tell me that you do not, even now, hate me!--that you do not hate
me!" repeated she, in a firmer tone; "I know too well how deeply I am
despised.
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