A deeper feeling than he had ever believed it possible for him to entertain for gay, volatile Miss Dick, had been born within his heart that evening; and, as he stood now and watched the girlish figure fade into the shadows of the upper corridor, it was with a sense of sudden loneliness that he turned and walked slowly across the wide entrance hall.
Mrs. Newbold's town house wore that look of desolation and inhospitality that is born of holland covers over the furniture, carpets rolled up into corners, statues, ornaments, and chandeliers wrapped in protecting winding-sheets. The advent of the mistress of the house had been sudden and unexpected, and the mansion had not as yet thrown off the depressing atmosphere of care-takers and board-wages.
In Esther's boudoir, however, matters were a little more homelike; the cases had been taken off the chairs and couches, and various feminine belongings, flowers and books, redeemed somewhat the forlornness of shrouded pictures, and a fireless hearth.
Mr. Tremain knocked in a perfunctory way on the door, and immediately Mrs. Newbold's voice bade him enter. He found her lying on a couch drawn up to an open window, over which the Venetian blind had been lowered.
She had been crying bitterly, and the face she raised from the pillows bore but a faint resemblance to its usual insouciant blonde prettiness, in the blurred lines, heavy eyes, pallid cheeks, and tumbled golden hair.
She sprang up impetuously on seeing Mr. Tremain, and ran towards him holding out her hands in welcome.
"Oh, Philip," she cried, "have you come at last? Oh, is it not all too dreadful? Have you seen her, Philip? How is she? Is she brave and full of courage? Oh, Patricia! poor, poor Patricia!"
Mr. Tremain took her hands in his as he answered:
"No, I have not seen her, Esther. We were too late."
She turned away from him and sank down again on the couch, looking up at him with the tears gathering in her tired blue eyes.