Dolly blushed up crimson. She had not seen Frank since that curious little talk she had had with George.
'But Robert doesn't wish it, mamma,' said Dolly.
'Nonsense, child. I wish it. Robert is not your husband yet,' said Mrs. Palmer; 'and if he were——'
'Shall I bring you a pen and ink?' Dolly asked, shyly.
'Just do as I tell you, dearest,' said her mother, crossly. 'Write, "Dear Mr. Raban,—My mother desires me to write and tell you with what pleasure she would welcome you on Tuesday next, if you would join a small expedition we are meditating, a water-party, in honour of Admiral Palmer's 57th birthday."'
'That is not a bit like one of my letters,' said Dolly, finishing quickly. 'Where can Aunt Sarah be?'
'I am sure I don't know, my dear. She left in the rudest manner when Witherington called. I have seen nothing of her.'
Lady Sarah was sitting upstairs alone—oh, how alone!—in the cheerless bed-room overhead, where she used to take her griefs and her sad mistrusts. They seemed to hang from the brown faded curtains by the window; they seemed to haunt all round the bed, among its washed-out draperies; they were ranged along the tall chimney-piece in bottles. Here is morphia and chlorodyne, or its equivalent of those days; here is the 'linament'—linament for a strained heart! chloroform for anxious love! Are not each one of those the relics of one or another wound, reopening again and again with the strains of the present. Sarah's hands are clasped and her head is bent forward as she sits in this half-darkness—leaden grey without, chill within—by the empty hearth. Did Robert love Dolly? Had he love in him? Had she been right to see him through Dolly's eyes?
Just then the door opens, and Dolly, flushed, brightening the dull twilight, comes into the room.
'Come down directly, you wicked woman,' she says. 'You will be catching cold here all by yourself.'