Then, and then only, they knew what had happened.
Face to face, those three persons--with every tie that had once united them snapped asunder in an instant--looked at each other.
The man owed a duty to the lost creature whose weakness had appealed to his mercy in vain. The man broke the silence.
"Catherine--"
With immeasurable contempt looking brightly out of her steady eyes, his wife stopped him.
"Not a word!"
He refused to be silent. "It is I," he said; "I only who am to blame."
"Spare yourself the trouble of making excuses," she answered;
"they are needless. Herbert Linley, the woman who was once your wife despises you."
Her eyes turned from him and rested on Sydney Westerfield.
"I have a last word to say to _you_. Look at me, if you can."
Sydney lifted her head. She looked vacantly at the outraged woman before her, as if she saw a woman in a dream.
With the same terrible self-possession which she had preserved from the first--standing between her husband and her governess--Mrs. Linley spoke.
"Miss Westerfield, you have saved my child's life." She paused--her eyes still resting on the girl's face. Deadly pale, she pointed to her husband, and said to Sydney: "Take him!"
She passed out of the room--and left them together.