“Do you dare to look the truth in the face?” Catherine interposed.  “Do you remember what sacred ties that man has broken? what memories he has profaned? what years of faithful love he has cast from him?  Must I tell you how he poisoned his wife’s mind with doubts of his truth and despair of his honor, when he basely deserted her?  You talk of your repentance.  Does your repentance forget that he would still have been my blameless husband but for you?”

Sydney silently submitted to reproach, silently endured the shame that finds no excuse for itself.

Catherine looked at her and relented.  The noble nature which could stoop to anger, but never sink to the lower depths of malice and persecution, restrained itself and made amends.  “I say it in no unkindness to you,” she resumed.  “But when you ask me to forgive, consider what you ask me to forget.  It will only distress us both if we remain longer together,” she continued, rising as she spoke.  “Perhaps you will believe that I mean well, when I ask if there is anything I can do for you?”

“Nothing!”

All the desolation of the lost woman told its terrible tale in that one word.  Invited to rest herself in the hotel, she asked leave to remain where she was; the mere effort of rising was too much for her now.  Catherine said the parting words kindly.  “I believe in your good intentions; I believe in your repentance.”

“Believe in my punishment!” After that reply, no more was said.

Behind the trees that closed the view at the further extremity of the lawn the moon was rising.  As the two women lost sight of each other, the new light, pure and beautiful, began to dawn over the garden.

Chapter XLVI.

Nil Desperandum.

No horror of her solitude, no melancholy recollections, no dread of the future disturbed Sydney’s mind.  The one sense left in her was the sense of fatigue.  Vacantly, mechanically, the girl rested as a tired animal might have rested.  She saw nothing, heard nothing; the one feeling of which she was conscious was a dull aching in every limb.  The moon climbed the heavens, brightened the topmost leaves of the trees, found the gloom in which Sydney was hidden, and cheered it tenderly with radiant light.  She was too weary to sleep, too weary even to shade her face when the moonbeams touched it.  While the light still strengthened, while the slow minutes still followed each other unheeded, the one influence that could rouse Sydney found her at last—­set her faint heart throbbing—­called her prostrate spirit to life again.  She heard a glad cry of recognition in a child’s voice: 

“Oh, Sydney, dear, is it you?”

In another instant her little pupil and playfellow of former days was in her arms.

“My darling, how did you come here?”

Susan answered the question.  “We are on our way back from the Palace, miss.  I am afraid,” she said, timidly, “that we ought to go in.”