She did not dread in the least what people
might say of her friendship with Miltoun; nor did she feel at all that
her indissoluble marriage forbade her loving him. She had secretly felt
free as soon as she had discovered that she had never really loved her
husband; she had only gone on dutifully until the separation, from
sheer passivity, and because it was against her nature to cause pain to
anyone. The man who was still her husband was now as dead to her as if
he had never been born. She could not marry again, it was true; but
she could and did love. If that love was to be starved and die away, it
would not be because of any moral scruples.
She opened her paper languidly; and almost the first words she read,
under the heading of Election News, were these:
'Apropos of the outrage on Mr. Courtier, we are requested to state that
the lady who accompanied Lord Miltoun to the rescue of that gentleman
was Mrs. Lees Noel, wife of the Rev. Stephen Lees Noel, vicar of
Clathampton, Warwickshire.'
This dubious little daub of whitewash only brought a rather sad smile to
her lips. She left her tea, and went out into the air. There at the gate
was Miltoun coming in. Her heart leaped. But she went forward quietly,
and greeted him with cast-down eyes, as if nothing were out of the
ordinary.
CHAPTER XV
Exaltation had not left Miltoun.
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