"One thing made it tolerable to us that your husband should come back
to the house," said Melbury at last--"the death of Mrs. Charmond."
"Ah, yes," said Grace, arousing slightly to the recollection, "he told
me so."
"Did he tell you how she died? It was no such death as Giles's. She
was shot--by a disappointed lover. It occurred in Germany. The
unfortunate man shot himself afterwards. He was that South Carolina
gentleman of very passionate nature who used to haunt this place to
force her to an interview, and followed her about everywhere. So ends
the brilliant Felice Charmond--once a good friend to me--but no friend
to you."
"I can forgive her," said Grace, absently. "Did Edgar tell you of
this?"
"No; but he put a London newspaper, giving an account of it, on the
hall table, folded in such a way that we should see it. It will be in
the Sherton paper this week, no doubt. To make the event more solemn
still to him, he had just before had sharp words with her, and left
her. He told Lucy this, as nothing about him appears in the newspaper.
And the cause of the quarrel was, of all people, she we've left behind
us."
"Do you mean Marty?" Grace spoke the words but perfunctorily. For,
pertinent and pointed as Melbury's story was, she had no heart for it
now.
"Yes. Marty South." Melbury persisted in his narrative, to divert her
from her present grief, if possible. "Before he went away she wrote
him a letter, which he kept in his, pocket a long while before reading.
He chanced to pull it out in Mrs. Charmond's, presence, and read it out
loud. It contained something which teased her very much, and that led
to the rupture. She was following him to make it up when she met with
her terrible death."
Melbury did not know enough to give the gist of the incident, which was
that Marty South's letter had been concerning a certain personal
adornment common to herself and Mrs. Charmond. Her bullet reached its
billet at last. The scene between Fitzpiers and Felice had been sharp,
as only a scene can be which arises out of the mortification of one
woman by another in the presence of a lover. True, Marty had not
effected it by word of mouth; the charge about the locks of hair was
made simply by Fitzpiers reading her letter to him aloud to Felice in
the playfully ironical tones of one who had become a little weary of
his situation, and was finding his friend, in the phrase of George
Herbert, a "flat delight." He had stroked those false tresses with his
hand many a time without knowing them to be transplanted, and it was
impossible when the discovery was so abruptly made to avoid being
finely satirical, despite her generous disposition.