"It is a strange world and we are all
miserable sinners. I hope there is a better somewhere. I'm well-nigh
tired of this, especially now that Beatrice has gone. Poor girl, she was
a good daughter and a fine woman. Good-bye. Good-bye!"
Then Geoffrey went.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE DUCHESS'S BALL
Geoffrey reached Town a little before eleven o'clock that night--a
haunted man--haunted for life by a vision of that face still lovely
in death, floating alone upon the deep, and companioned only by the
screaming mews--or perchance now sinking or sunk to an unfathomable
grave. Well might such a vision haunt a man, the man whom alone of all
men those cold lips had kissed, and for whose dear sake this dreadful
thing was done.
He took a cab directing the driver to go to Bolton Street and to stop
at his club as he passed. There might be letters for him there, he
thought--something which would distract his mind a little. As it chanced
there was a letter, marked "private," and a telegram; both had been
delivered that evening, the porter said, the former about an hour ago by
hand.
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