"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said.
"Yes," Rebecca answered.
"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had dawned again,
and many hours had passed in this search), "and I will pay Briggs, who
was kind to the boy, and some of the debts. You will let me know where
I shall send the rest to you. You might have spared me a hundred
pounds, Becky, out of all this--I have always shared with you."
"I am innocent," said Becky. And he left her without another word.
What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained for hours after
he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting
alone on the bed's edge. The drawers were all opened and their
contents scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a
heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair was falling over
her shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon had wrenched the
brilliants out of it. She heard him go downstairs a few minutes after
he left her, and the door slamming and closing on him. She knew he
would never come back. He was gone forever. Would he kill
himself?--she thought--not until after he had met Lord Steyne. She
thought of her long past life, and all the dismal incidents of it. Ah,
how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely and profitless! Should she
take laudanum, and end it, to have done with all hopes, schemes, debts,
and triumphs? The French maid found her in this position--sitting in
the midst of her miserable ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes. The
woman was her accomplice and in Steyne's pay. "Mon Dieu, madame, what
has happened?" she asked.
What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said not, but who could
tell what was truth which came from those lips, or if that corrupt
heart was in this case pure?
All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her wiles, all her
wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy. The woman closed the
curtains and, with some entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded her
mistress to lie down on the bed. Then she went below and gathered up
the trinkets which had been lying on the floor since Rebecca dropped
them there at her husband's orders, and Lord Steyne went away.