“I will tell her,” he said, hoarsely.
He could scarcely restrain himself from crying aloud as he played his part.
All the way up to town he had to keep repeating to himself, “Esmeralda has gone—gone forever,” for his father’s sudden death had, for a time, obscured his other and greater sorrow.
As the cab drove to the house in Grosvenor Square, he looked up and saw that the blinds were down; they had heard the news. The footman who opened the door to him met him with a solemn face.
“Her ladyship is in, your grace,” he said.
Trafford started at the too ready “your grace,” and followed the man up to the boudoir in which he had so often sat with Esmeralda.
Lady Wyndover rose from the couch and came to meet him with both hands extended. She looked pale and shocked, and he saw that she had been crying.
“Oh, Trafford!” she said, with a catch in her voice. “How—how ill you look! Why have you come? Is—is Esmeralda ill? Do you want me? She has sent for me?”
He stood looking at her, yet scarcely seeing her. He did not know how to break the other—and far worse—news to her.