"Do you think he believes it, mamma?" Mrs. Trevelyan said to her mother when they had already made nearly half their journey home in the cab. There had been nothing spoken hitherto between them, except some half-formed words of affection intended for consolation to the young mother in her great affliction.
"He does not know what he believes, dearest."
"You heard what he said. I was to own that I had—sinned."
"Sinned;—yes; because you will not obey him like a slave. That is sin—to him."
"But I asked him, mamma. Did you not hear me? I could not say the word plainer,—but I asked him whether he meant that sin. He must have known, and he would not answer me. And he spoke of my—transgression. Mamma, if he believed that, he would not let me come back at all."
"He did not believe it, Emily."
"Could he possibly then so accuse me,—the mother of his child! If his heart be utterly hard and false towards me, if it is possible that he should be cruel to me with such cruelty as that,—still he must love his boy. Why did he not answer me, and say that he did not think it?"
"Simply because his reason has left him."
"But if he be mad, mamma, ought we to leave him like that? And, then, did you see his eyes, and his face, and his hands? Did you observe how thin he is,—and his back, how bent? And his clothes,—how they were torn and soiled. It cannot be right that he should be left like that."
"We will tell papa when we get home," said Lady Rowley, who was herself beginning to be somewhat frightened by what she had seen. It is all very well to declare that a friend is mad when one simply desires to justify one's self in opposition to that friend;—but the matter becomes much more serious when evidence of the friend's insanity becomes true and circumstantial. "I certainly think that a physician should see him," continued Lady Rowley. On their return home Sir Marmaduke was told of what had occurred, and there was a long family discussion in which it was decided that Lady Milborough should be consulted, as being the oldest friend of Louis Trevelyan himself with whom they were acquainted. Trevelyan had relatives of his own name living in Cornwall; but Mrs. Trevelyan herself had never even met one of that branch of the family.