But, as usual, Lady Sarah, freezing under Mrs. Palmer's sunny influence, got up and left the room.
Rhoda, tearful and forgiven, remained for some time giving her version of things to Mrs. Palmer. She had come to speak to Lady Sarah by her aunt's advice. Aunt Morgan had opened George's letter as it lay upon the breakfast-table, and had been as much surprised as Rhoda herself by its contents. They had come to talk things over with Lady Sarah, to tell her of all that had been making Rhoda so unhappy of late.
'I thought she and you, Mrs. Palmer, would have advised me and told me what was right to do,' said the girl, with dark eyes brimming over. 'How can I help it if he loves me? I know that he might have looked higher.'
'The boy is perfectly demented,' said Mrs. Palmer, 'to dream of marrying. He has not a sixpence, my dear child—barely enough to pay his cab-hire. He has been most ridiculous. How we shall ever persuade Lady Sarah to pay his debts I cannot imagine! Dolly will not own to it, but we all know that she does not like parting with her money. I do hope and trust she has made her will, for she looks a perfect wreck.'
'Oh, mamma!' entreated poor Dolly.
Mrs. Palmer paid no heed, except to say crossly, 'I do wish you had shown a little common sense. Dolly, you have utterly injured your prospects. Robert will be greatly annoyed; he counts so much upon dear Sarah's affection for you both. As for me, I have been disappointed far too often to count upon anything. By the way, Dolly, I wish you would go up and ask your aunt whether that invitation has come to Bucklersbury House. Go, child; why do you look so vacant?'
Poor Dolly! One by one all those she trusted most seemed to be failing and disappointing her. Hitherto Dolly had idealised them all. She shrank to learn that love and faith must overcome evil with good, and that this is their reward even in this life, and that to love those who love you is not the whole of its experience.
Rhoda's letter, miserable as it was, had relieved Dolly from much of her present anxiety about George. That hateful dark river no longer haunted her. He was unhappy, but he was safe on shore. All the same, everything seemed dull, and sad, and undefined that afternoon, and Robert coming in, found her sitting in the oak-room window with her head resting on her hand and her work lying in her lap. She had taken up some work, but as she set the stitches, it seemed to her,—it was but a fancy—that with each stitch George was going farther and farther away, and she dropped her work at last into her lap, and reasoned herself into some composure; only when her lover came in cheerfully and talking with the utmost ease and fluency, her courage failed her suddenly.
'What is the matter; why do you look so unhappy?' said Robert.