“I, too, loved her,” he said, simply.
There was a pause, then he rose in a dazed kind of way.
“You will do as I ask? Go down to Deepdale at once. She may come to you— No, she will not leave him. Why should she? He loves her and she thinks I do not. Wait there till you hear from me, and—and send me word to come to you if you hear anything.”
He moved toward the door, looking so wan and aged that Lady Wyndover, even in the midst of her grief for Esmeralda, could have cried aloud for pity of him.
“Oh, believe in her still, Trafford!” she sobbed.
“If I only could!” he said, with a groan, and went out. He went to his rooms, and sat there brooding—playing the solitary game called, “Looking Back At the Past.” It is a poor game, and one seldom wins at it. He was so lost in his thoughts that he managed to lose the train, and had to remain in town; and so he gave Lady Ada another opportunity.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
Norman found his mother very ill. The doctor did not forbid all hope; but a crisis was approaching. They could only wait. Norman was very fond of his mother, and greatly upset, and he put off writing his letter to Trafford until the morrow; and in the morning he, of course, read the news of the duke’s sudden death.
He would have dashed off to Belfayre then and there, but he could not leave his mother; and he did the next best thing to going—sat down and wrote a letter to Trafford—the letter of a close and dear friend—and adding that the moment he could leave his mother he would hasten to Belfayre on the chance of being some use. He sent his love to Esmeralda, and his “kind regards” to Lilias. Then he posted his letter with his own hands, and returned to his mother’s bedside to mourn; for the duke had always been very good to him, and he loved the old man.