annot utterly
ruin you. You must be exposed--I could not help that, if I would--and
we must separate, but I will be generous to you; I will allow you five
hundred a year, and you shall live where you like. You shall not
starve."

She laughed a little as she answered.

"I am starving now: it is long past luncheon time. As for your five
hundred a year that you will give me out of the three or four thousand
I have given you, I care nothing for it. I tell you I am tired of it
all, and I never felt more superior to you than I do now in the moment
of your triumph. It wants a stronger hand than yours to humble me. I
may be a bad woman, I daresay I am, but you will find, too late, that
there are few in the world like me. For years you have shone with a
reflected light; when the light goes out, you will go out too. Get
back into your native mud, the mental slime out of which I picked you,
contemptible creature that you are! and, when you have lost me, learn
to measure the loss by the depths to which you will sink. I reject
your offers. I mock at your threats, for they will recoil on your own
head. I despise you, and I have done with you. John Bellamy, good-
bye;" and, with a proud curtsey, she swept from the room.

That evening it was rumoured that Sir John Bellamy had separated from
his wife, owing to circumstances which had come to his knowledge in
connection with George Caresfoot's death.

CHAPTER LX

That same afternoon, Lady Bellamy ordered out the victoria with the
fast trotting horse, and drove to the Abbey House. She found Philip
pacing up and down the gravel in front of the grey old place, which
had that morning added one more to the long list of human tragedies
its walls had witnessed. His face was pale, and contorted by mental
suffering, and, as soon as he recognized Lady Bellamy, he made an
effort to escape. She stopped him.

"I suppose it is here, Mr. Caresfoot?"

"It! What?"

"The body."

"Yes."

"I wish to see it."

Philip hesitated a minute, and then led the way to his study. The
corpse had been laid upon the table just as it had been taken from the
water; indeed, the wet still fell in heavy drops from the clothes on
to the ground. It was to be removed to Roxham that evening, to await
the inquest on the morrow. The shutters of the room had been closed,
lest the light should strike too fiercely on the ghastly sight; but
even in the twilight Lady Bellamy could d