Windlehurst had put the matter in the right way.

Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda--! She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.
Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.
Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: "I have left him--I have left him.

I have come to you." With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which had brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst.
"There--there it is.

He goes from me to her--to that!" She thrust the letter into the Duchess's fingers.

"You knew--you knew! I saw the look that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera.