CHAPTER 36Leonora, Countess of Moron, paced her long dressing-room, her hands behind her, a calm, speculative woman, for emotion did not belong to her. Chesney Praye and the doctor she had left in the music-room, and through the windows that overlooked the stone porch at the front of the house she had, a few minutes before, seen the car pass which carried Mary Pinder to happiness and freedom.
Lady Moron felt no resentment against any save the weakling son she had hated from his birth. There was still a hope that the wheel would turn by some miracle in her favour. All she had played for, all she had won, was gone. It was the hour of reparation and judgment, not yet for her the hour of penitence.
Opening a little safe that was set in the wall, concealed by a silver barometer, she took out
