When Lord Fordyce found himself alone, it felt as if life itself must leave him, the agony of pain was so great, the fiendish irony of circumstances.

It almost seemed that each time he had intended to do a good thing, he had been punished.

He had left Arranstoun for the best motive, and so had not seen Sabine and thus saved himself from future pain; he had taken Michael to Heronac out of kindly friendship, and this had robbed him of his happiness.

But, awful as the discovery was now, it was not half so terrible as it would have been if the truth had only come to him later, when Sabine had become his wife.

He must be thankful for that.