Part 49 (2/2)

And Caroline was perfectly well aware of what was pa.s.sing in the other woman's mind. It was one of the many little p.r.i.c.kly burdens which she carried in her heart in these days.

If it could have been possible to have shared this trouble with Agnes Brenton, she would have done it gladly; but she knew that Camilla's disloyalty had worked far deeper into the heart of this woman, who had loved her with the anxious love of a mother for so many years, than even Agnes Brenton herself realized.

Mrs. Brenton had never set Camilla on a pedestal; she had never proclaimed her faultless, but she had never ceased to find reasonable excuses for all the mistakes that the younger woman had made.

Her love had always been tempered by her judgment. She had forgiven more in Camilla than she would have been able to forgive in other people; but she could not easily pardon that act of betrayal, that deliberate renunciation of right, of honour, and of duty.

Caroline was by no means sure that if she were to have lain before Mrs.

Brenton the facts which Sir Samuel had disclosed to her that sad and strange morning, she would have received any suggestion of help. On the contrary, it seemed to her that Camilla's old friend might have been more definitely estranged, as a.s.suredly she would have been made more miserable were she to have listened to that story of temptation and weakness and dishonour.

Caroline herself, though she pitied, also condemned.

Undoubtedly the woman had been sorely tried; she must have endured a veritable torture at Broxbourne's hands, but surely (Caroline argued now), surely she owed the man who had loved her so wonderfully, too big a debt of grat.i.tude to have exposed him so needlessly to the heart suffering and humiliation she had brought upon him?

”What she ought to have done,” Caroline said over and over again to herself, ”was, firstly, to have broken her engagement, then if he had pressed her for an explanation, she could have told him the truth. I know this must have seemed too hard for her to do, but I know, too, that such love as he had for her can work miracles. If she had only thrown herself on his hands for protection, I am convinced he would have stood by her. As it is, she has lost him, she has lost Agnes Brenton, and she has sold herself into a worse bondage than any she ever had in the past!”

And still though she judged, and even condemned, Caroline could not detach herself from this woman. In her turn she owed a heavy debt to Camilla, a debt that was sweet to pay, that claimed from her the best she had to give.

The same spirit that had sent her out into the night, eagerly defiant of fatigue, loneliness, or any possible danger, merely to stand beside this helpless, lovable woman, animated her still. She could not shut out of her remembrance the pleading patheticness of Camilla's look the last time they had met, and though they were now parted by an irrevocable barrier, she remained still acutely sensitive to the spell exercised by that creature of wayward moods and tenderest influences.

When Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst reached London, she at once wired to Yelverton, announcing her arrival, and desired that the children might be taken to town the following day to meet her.

To Caroline she sent a little pleading note, in which she asked the girl to bring the children herself.

”She has at least the grace not to suggest coming here,” said Mrs.

Brenton, with a laugh that had the sound of tears in it.

Then she looked at Caroline.

”You will go?” she said in a low voice; and Caroline said--

”Yes.”

The Cuthbert Baynhursts were installed naturally in one of the best suites of one of the largest and most sumptuous hotels.

It was so strange, so natural, and yet so unreal to see Camilla again!

She looked marvellously well; that fretted, excited, nervous air had gone entirely.

As Betty phrased it--

”You look _so_ pretty, mummy darling, just like a new, young girl.”

The presence of the children relieved the situation to a great extent, yet both Caroline and Cuthbert Baynhurst's wife felt the strain of this meeting sharply.

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