The revulsion of feeling was too
sudden, too overwhelming. He could not bear it. He could not live
through it. He flung himself on his face upon the floor, and sobbed as
if his heart would break.
* * * * *
The cyclone of passion which had swept Hugh into its vortex spent itself
and him, and flung him down at last. How long a time elapsed he never
knew between the moment when he, read the news of the accident and the
moment when shattered, exhausted, disfigured by emotion, he raised
himself to his feet. He opened the window, and the night air laid its
cool mother-touch upon his face and hands. The streets were silent. The
house was silent. He leaned with closed eyes against the window-post.
Time passed by on the other side.
And after a while angels came and ministered to him. Thankfulness came
softly, gently, to take his shaking hand in hers. The awful past was
over. A false step, a momentary giddiness on the part of his enemy, and
the hideous strangling meshes of the past had fallen from him at a
touch, as if they had never wrapped him round. Lord Newhaven was gone
to return no more. The past went with him. Dead men tell no tales. No
one knew of the godless compact between them, and of how he, Hugh, had
failed to keep to it, save they two alone.
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