The next day a letter was handed to her.  She recognized the handwriting—­it was Lord Arleigh’s.  She laid the note down, not daring to read it before Lady Peters.  What had he to say to her?

When she was alone she opened it.

“You will be pleased to hear, duchess, that your scheme has entirely succeeded.  You have made two innocent people who have never harmed you as wretched as it is possible for human beings to be.  In no respect has your vengeance failed.  I—­your old friend, playmate, brother, the son of your mother’s dearest friend—­have been made miserable for life.  Your revenge was well chosen.  You knew that, however I might worship Madaline, my wife, however much I might love her, she could never be mistress of Beechgrove, she could never be the mother of my children; you knew that, and therefore I say your revenge was admirably chosen.  It were useless to comment on your wickedness, or to express the contempt I feel for the woman who could deliberately plan such evil and distress.  I must say this, however.  All friendship and acquaintance between us is at an end.  You will be to me henceforward an entire stranger.  I could retaliate.  I could write and tell your husband, who is a man of honor, of the unworthy deed you have done; but I shall not do that—­it would be unmanly.  Before my dear wife and I parted, we agreed that the punishment of your sin should be left to Heaven.  So I leave it.  To a woman unworthy enough to plan such a piece of baseness, it will be satisfaction sufficient to know that her scheme has succeeded.  Note the words ’my wife and I parted’—­parted, never perhaps to meet again.  She has all my love, all my heart, all my unutterable respect and deep devotion; but, as you know, she can never be mistress of my house.  May Heaven forgive you.

     Arleigh.”

She could have borne with his letter if it had been filled with the wildest invictives—­if he had reproached her, even cursed her; his dignified forbearance, his simple acceptance of the wrong she had done him, she could not tolerate.

She laid down the letter.  It was all over now—­the love for which she would have given her life, the friendship that had once been so true, the vengeance that had been so carefully planned.  She had lost his love, his friendship, his esteem.  She could see him no more.  He despised her.  There came to her a vision of what she might have been to him had things been different—­his friend, adviser, counselor—­the woman upon whom he would have looked as the friend of his chosen wife—­the woman whom, after all, he loved best—­his sister, his truest confidante.  All this she might have been but for her revenge.  She had forfeited it all now.  Her life would be spent as though he did not exist; and there was no one but herself to blame.

Still she had had her revenge; she smiled bitterly to herself as she thought of that.  She had punished him.  The beautiful face grew pale, and the dark eyes shone through a mist of tears.