As he thought of all this, there was not wanting to him some of the satisfaction of an escape.  Soon after making that declaration of love at Allington he had begun to feel that in making it he had cut his throat.  He had endeavoured to persuade himself that he could live comfortably with his throat cut in that way; and as long as Lily was with him he would believe that he could do so; but as soon as he was again alone he would again accuse himself of suicide.  This was his frame of mind even while he was yet at Allington, and his ideas on the subject had become stronger during his sojourn at Courcy.  But the self-immolation had not been completed, and he now began to think that he could save himself.  I need hardly say that this was not all triumph to him.  Even had there been no material difficulty as to his desertion of Lily,—­no uncle, cousin, and mother whose anger he must face,—­no vision of a pale face, more eloquent of wrong in its silence than even uncle, cousin, and mother, with their indignant storm of words,—­he was not altogether heartless.  How should he tell all this to the girl who had loved him so well; who had so loved him, that, as he himself felt, her love would fashion all her future life either for weal or for woe?  “I am unworthy of her, and will tell her so,” he said to himself.  How many a false hound of a man has endeavoured to salve his own conscience by such mock humility?  But he acknowledged at this moment, as he rose from his seat to dress himself, that the die was cast, and that it was open to him now to say what he pleased to Lady Alexandrina.  “Others have gone through the same fire before,” he said to himself, as he walked downstairs, “and have come out scatheless.”  And then he recalled to himself the names of various men of high repute in the world who were supposed to have committed in their younger days some such little mistake as that into which he had been betrayed.

In passing through the hall he overtook Lady Julia De Guest, and was in time to open for her the door of the drawing-room.  He then remembered that she had come into the billiard-room at one side, and had gone out at the other, while he was standing with Alexandrina at the window.  He had not, however, then thought much of Lady Julia; and as he now stood for her to pass by him through the doorway, he made to her some indifferent remark.

But Lady Julia was on some subjects a stern woman, and not without a certain amount of courage.  In the last week she had seen what had been going on, and had become more and more angry.  Though she had disowned any family connection with Lily Dale, nevertheless she now felt for her sympathy and almost affection.  Nearly every day she had repeated stiffly to the countess some incident of Crosbie’s courtship and engagement to Miss Dale,—­speaking of it as with absolute knowledge, as a thing settled at all points.  This she had done to the countess alone, in the presence of the countess and Alexandrina,