"What ailed him?" asked Lady Barton. "Was he laid up with fever?" Her voice betrayed her emotion.
"No, not fever," answered the sailor, wishing himself up to his neck in water rather than standing there to answer the lady's questions.
"It was not his chest—not his lungs?" said the anxious mother, dropping her voice. "He was so subject to coughs as a boy!"
"His lungs are as sound as can be, I'll answer for that!" replied Ned, with a clear recollection of the strength of a voice which, raised in an oath or a curse, might be heard above the roar of a storm.
"Then what was the matter with him?" repeated Lady Barton, in the tone of one who must, and will, have a reply.
Ned's honest face was suffused with a flush, as if he himself had been the culprit as he answered—"He'd had a bit of a spree on shore, and been knocked about a little; these things will sometimes happen, but a few bruises don't do much harm."
Lady Barton asked no more questions; she knew enough of her son's former habits to enable her to guess but too well what the sailor had left unsaid. Sorrow taking the form of mortified pride, the lady drew herself up, and the delicate kid-gloved hand slid something back into her pocket, a movement which did not escape the covetous eyes of Bessy.
Without condescending to say another word to Ned Franks, Lady Barton rose from her seat, and, turning to address Mrs. Curtis, plunged at once into a different subject of conversation. She asked the vicar's wife about her scholars, said that Sir Lacy had resolved on beginning to build the new school at Michaelmas, and observed that somewhere about this spot would be the best possible place for the site.
Bessy clenched her teeth, and scowled at her brother, but the expression of anger on her face was instantly changed to one of obsequious mildness, as she caught the eye of the stately Lady Barton. If Bessy had been gratified by the visit of the vicar's wife, she was overwhelmed by the honour of one from a titled lady, and with a double number of curtsies and thanks, she shewed her two guests to the door, sending blessings after them as long as they remained within hearing.
And then!—