Marian looked up again at her brother’s troubled face.
“It doesn’t matter, Jervis,” she said, with a faint smile. “Nothing matters now. Hannah’s words can’t touch me.”
Hannah whirled away out of the kitchen, giving vent to her feelings in an inarticulate growl, and leaving the other two alone together.
“Something’s wrong, Polly,” her brother said.
“You’re not like yourself. What is it, my dear? Are you over-tired?”
“It’s not bodily tiredness,” she answered listlessly. “I’m a stronger woman than you’d count me. But I don’t seem to have any spirit left in me. I thought nothing could ever shake my new hope in God; and now that’s gone too. There’s nothing left.”
Jervis gazed pityingly at her, and after a slight pause she went on—
“They are taking Mr. Rutherford home to-day. He has been at the Cross Arms till now. And I found yesterday—it was said to me—Mr. Ackroyd thought I had better leave. There were reasons—and after all it’s my own fault. Mr. Ackroyd is Mr. Rutherford’s nephew, and pretty much like his own son—wonderfully like him too in face. He’s pretty well managing everything now. Miss Rutherford and all of them turn to him. He would have sent me back in a fly to-day, only I settled to walk.”
“And your box, my dear—the things we had to send to you.”
“They’ll be sent. I didn’t ask how. I promised Mr. Ackroyd I’d leave before they arrived. That was all he asked.”