"No, do not read it me. What is the use? He has made her quarrel with me. Julia cares nothing now for me, or for my angel. Why should she care? When she came home we would not see her. Of course she will not care. Who is there that will care for me?"
"Do not I care for you, Hermione?"
"Yes, because you are here; because of the nearness of the houses. If you lived far away you would not care for me. It is just the custom of the thing." There was something so true in this that Mrs. Clavering could make no answer to it. Then they turned to go back into the sitting-room, and as they did so Lady Clavering lingered behind for a moment; but when she was again with Mrs. Clavering her cheek was still dry.
"He will be at the station at nine," said Lady Clavering. "They must send the brougham for him, or the dog-cart. He will be very angry if he is made to come home in the fly from the public-house." Then the elder lady left the room and gave orders that Sir Hugh should be met by his carriage. What must the wife think of her husband, when she feared that he would be angered by little matters at such a time as this! "Do you think it will make him very unhappy?" Lady Clavering asked.
"Of course it will make him unhappy. How should it be otherwise?"
"He had said so often that the child would die. He will have got used to the fear."
"His grief will be as fresh now as though he had never thought so, and never said so."
"He is so hard; and then he has such will, such power. He will thrust it off from him and determine that it shall not oppress him. I know him so well."
"We should all make some exertion like that in our sorrow, trusting to God's kindness to relieve us. You too, Hermione, should determine also; but not yet, my dear. At first it is better to let sorrow have its way."
"But he will determine at once. You remember when Meeny went." Meeny had been a little girl who had been born before the boy, and who had died when little more than twelve months old. "He did not expect that; but then he only shook his head, and went out of the room. He has never spoken to me one word of her since that. I think he has forgotten Meeny altogether,—even that she was ever here."