Chapter 19 - Page 2

not seemed to think at all. She had only _felt_ things which had nothing
to do with the real world.

There was a fire in the grate and when the last button was fastened she
sat down on a seat before it and looked into the redness of the coals,
her hands loosely clasped on her knee. She sat there for several minutes
and then she turned her head and looked slowly round the room. She did
it because she was impelled by a sense of its emptiness--by the fact
that she was quite alone in it. There was only herself--only Robin in
it.

That was her first feeling--the aloneness--and then she thought of
something else. She seemed to feel again the hand of Lord Coombe on her
shoulder when he held her back in the darkened wood and she could hear
his almost whispered words.

"In this Wood--even now--there is Something which must be saved from
suffering. It is helpless--it is blameless. It is not you--it is not
Donal--God help it."

Then she was not alone--even as she sat in the emptiness of the room.
She put up her hands and covered her face with them.

"What--will happen?" she murmured. But she did not cry.

The deadliness of the blow which had stupefied her still left her barely
conscious of earthly significances. But something of the dark mistiness
was beginning to lift slowly and reveal to her vague shadows and shapes,
as it were. If no one would believe that she was married to Donal, then
people would think that she had been the kind of girl who is sent away
from decent houses, if she is a servant, and cut off in awful disgrace
from her family and never spoken to again, if she belongs to the upper
classes. Books and Benevolent Societies speak of her as "fallen" and
"lost." Her vision of such things was at once vague and primitive. It
took the form of pathetic fictional figures or memories of some hushed
rumour heard by mere chance, rather than of anything more realistic. She
dropped her hands upon her lap and looked at the fire again.

"Now I shall be like that," she said listlessly. "And it does not
matter. Donal knew. And I do not care--I do not care."

"The Duchess will send me away," she whispered next. "Perhaps she will
send me away to-day. Where shall I go!" The hands on her lap began to
tremble and she suddenly felt cold in spite of the fire. The sound of a
knock on the door made her start to her feet. The woman who had looked
sorry for her when she came in had brought a message.

"Her grace wishes to see you, Miss," she said.

"Thank you," Robin answered.

After the servant had gone away she stood still a moment or so.

"Perhaps she is going to tell me