Then he shook her from him, not violently, but with a persistent action.
"Do you mean that you want to go up to town?" he said.
"Oh, no; not that."
"Then what is it you want? Where would you live, if not here?"
"Anywhere you please, only that you should stay with me."
"All that is nonsense. I wonder that you should talk of such things now. Come away from this, and let me go to my room. All this is trash and nonsense, and I hate it." She put back with careful hands the piece of cambric which she had moved, and then, seating herself on a chair, wept violently, with her hands closed upon her face. "That comes of bringing me here," he said. "Get up, Hermione. I will not have you so foolish. Get up, I say. I will have the room closed till the men come."
"Oh, no!"
"Get up, I say, and come away." Then she rose, and followed him out of the chamber, and when he went to change his clothes she returned to the room in which he had found her. There she sat and wept, while he went down and dined and drank alone. But the old housekeeper brought her up a morsel of food and a glass of wine, saying that her master desired that she would take it.
"I will not leave you, my lady, till you have done so," said Hannah. "To fast so long must be bad always."
Then she eat the food, and drank a drop of wine, and allowed the old woman to take her away to the bed that had been prepared for her. Of her husband she saw no more for four days. On the next morning a note was brought to her, in which Sir Hugh told her that he had returned to London. It was necessary, he said, that he should see his lawyer and his brother. He and Archie would return for the funeral. With reference to that he had already given orders.