Esmeralda took the sweet face in her hands.
“Perhaps some day you will have some one else to love you, dear,” she said. “Good-night.”
Lilias went, and Barker came. Esmeralda was sitting by the open window.
“Leave me alone for a little while,” she said. “I am too tired to undress. Will you give me some water before you go?”
Barker gave her mistress some water, then went down-stairs to continue the discussion of the party in the servants’ hall.
Esmeralda leaned back with her eyes closed. She could hear her husband’s footsteps as he paced restlessly on the terrace below. Her husband’s! A wave of bitterness swept over her as she thought of the misery that hung like a dark cloud over her life. At that moment, doubtless, he was thinking of Lady Ada; perhaps wishing that he had not “married for money!” She clasped her hands tightly and pressed her lips together to keep back the tears that threatened to rise. She heard the door open, but thinking it was Barker, did not turn her head. Then she became conscious that the footsteps were heavier than those of Barker, and, looking up, she saw that it was Trafford. In her surprise and amazement she did not move, but sat and gazed at him.
He had never entered her room before. Why had he come to-night? A sudden hope shot warmly through her heart, and the blood began to rise in her face; then it died away again, for as he came forward into the light of the softly shaded lamp, she saw his face and noted its haggard and stern expression. There was something in his dark eyes that she had never seen there before—a terrible sternness which added a vague terror to her surprise at his presence.
“Trafford!” she said.
She rose and stood in her white dress, her hands by her side, her face turned toward him. He looked at her long and fixedly; then, as if he had remembered, he turned back and locked the door and stood beside it, still looking at her with the terrible sternness which was slowly making fear predominant in her heart.
“What is the matter?” she asked. “Why have you come?”