“I particularly do not wish Lord Fordyce ever to know that my name was Arranstoun,” she said.  “I will pay anything if it is necessary to stop reports—­and if such things are possible to do in this country?”

But Mr. Parsons could hold out no really encouraging hopes of this.  No details would probably be known, but that Michael Arranstoun had married a Sabine Delburg and now divorced her would certainly be announced in the Scotch journals, where the Arranstouns and their Castle were of such interest to the public.

“If only I had been called Mary Smith!” Sabine almost moaned.  “If Lord Fordyce sees this he must realize that, although he knows me as Sabine Howard, I was probably Sabine Delburg.”

“I should think you had better inform his lordship yourself at once.  There is no disgrace in the matter.  Arranstoun is a very splendid name,” Mr. Parsons ventured to remind her.

But Sabine shut her firm mouth.  Not until it became absolutely necessary would she do this thing.

Henry’s company now had no longer power to soothe her; she found herself crushing down sudden inclinations to be capricious to him or even unkind—­and then she would feel full of remorse and regret when she saw the pain in his fond eyes.  She was thankful that they were returning to Paris, and then she meant to go straight to Heronac, telling him he must see her no more until she was free.  It was the month of the greatest storms there; it would suit her exactly and it was her very own.  She need not act for only Madame Imogen and Pere Anselme.  But when she thought of this latter a sensation of discomfort came.  How could she read in peace with the dear old man, who was so keen and so subtle he would certainly divine that all was not well?  And ever his sentence recurred to her:  “Remember always, my daughter, that le Bon Dieu settles things for us mortals if we leave it all to Him, but if we take the helm in the direction of our own affairs, it may be that He will let circumstance draw us into rough waters.”  And then, that as she had taken the helm she must abide by her word.  Bitterness and regret were her portion—­in a far greater degree than after that other crisis of her life, when its realities had come to her, and she knew she must bear them alone.  She had been too young then to understand half the possibilities of mental pain, and also there was no finality about anything—­all might develop into sunshine again.  Now she had the most cruel torture of all, the knowledge that she herself by her wilfulness and pride had pulled down the blinds and brought herself into darkness, and that there was not anything to be done.