She would have remarked a strangeness in his manner to her, explicable now.

Believing, how she must scorn him! How those beautiful eyes of hers would speak in one glance of cold contempt, if ever he passed beneath them! She _might_ take the nobler part; she _might_ hold it incredible till she had a confession from his very lips.

But were women magnanimous?
And Annabel, very clear in thought, very pure in soul--was she after all so far above her sisters as to face all hazard of human weakness in defence of an ideal?
Annabel, now in London, would write the news to Mrs.Ormonde.Would it receive credence from her--his dearest friend?
Assuredly not, if she had known nothing to give the calumny startling support.

But there was that letter he wrote to her about Thyrza; there was her recollection of the interview in Great Russell Street, when it might be that he had betrayed himself.

She had found him in a state of perturbation which he could not conceal; it was on the eve of his own departure from London--of Thyrza's disappearance.