But, madness or wickedness, it was all the same; Eugenie's life was ruined, and her father could neither mend it nor avenge it.
For owing to some--in his eyes--quixotic tenderness of conscience on Eugenie's part, she would not sue for her divorce.

She believed that Albert was not responsible--that he might return to her.

And that passionate spiritual life of hers, the ideas of which Lord Findon only half understood, forbade her, it seemed, any step which would finally bar the way of that return; unless Albert should himself ask her to take it.

But the Comte had never made a sign.

Lord Findon could only suppose that he found himself as free as he wished to be, that the ladies he consorted with were equally devoid of scruples, and that he, therefore, very naturally, preferred to avoid publicity.
So here was Eugenie, husbandless and childless at eight-and-twenty--for the only child of the marriage had died within a year of its birth; the heroine of an odious story which, if it had never reached the law courts, was none the less perfectly well known in society; and, in the eyes of those who loved her, one of the bravest, saddest, noblest of women.