"Mrs. Villiers—" he echoed. "Yes—Mrs. Villiers, you say. Yes, certainly. I will go to-morrow."
"Very well. I will tell my father," Mabel said, and took herself off with all speed.
"Now that was an odd way to ask you! Why couldn't she send a post-card?" demanded Mrs. Kennedy. "People are so queer, and I do think people in trouble are the queerest of all. One never knows how they'll take it, or what they will be after next. What do you suppose Mrs. Villiers wants you for, Thomas?"
Mr. Kennedy had no suggestions to offer. He was not, like his wife, original.
Evelyn Villiers, far from being stupefied by her loss, as Mrs. Kennedy conjectured, was rather awakened by it to an abnormal acuteness of sensation. She was of stronger fibre, of more tough and elastic make, than would commonly have been supposed by those who only saw, with unpenetrating eyes, her fair and fragile exterior.
On the night of her husband's death, she had been worn out with bodily exertion and mental agony; but life was strong within her still, and she knew it before another day had passed. She might and did look ineffably mournful and sweet; she might and did think that the best of her days were over; she might and did feel that things could never again be to her as they had been; nevertheless, life stirred actively as an under-current, bearing her on with resistless power to "new tasks and sorrow's new," not to speak of possible new joys also.
In health, she suffered loss than might have been expected. The strain and the shock had actually told less upon her than upon Jean; doubtless because she had given in more at the time, and had leant upon others, at least in a measure, while Jean had borne up, and had endured a full pressure of responsibility. But nobody thought of pitying Jean, except in a perfunctory fashion; and nobody noticed anything unusual in her, unless it were Mr. Trevelyan; while all the world was convinced that Evelyn must be utterly broken-down. She was obliged to consent to one or two more visits from Dr. Ingram, if only as an escape from Miss Devereux' importunity: but frail as she looked, she was not ill.
"I wish I were! Anything to stop thinking," she said mournfully to him. "But I am well—I don't need medicines."
And Dr. Ingram frankly endorsed her words.
To get rid of Sybella before the funeral proved impossible, without stronger measures than Evelyn in her grieved and softened state cared to take. She submitted, therefore; and as the only means of avoiding Miss Devereux's interminable chit-chat, she spent her days in solitude, refusing admittance to all—even to Jean. For if she saw more of Jean, she would have inevitably to see more of Sybella.