“Esmeralda?” was Lilias’s first word.
He looked down and pulled some letters toward him.
“She is at Deepdale,” he said. “She—she is ill. The shock—”
“Yes, I can understand that,” said Lilias. “Did she look very ill?”
“I—I did not see her,” he said, with feigned easiness. “There was no time. I saw Lady Wyndover. Esmeralda—there is nothing serious—she is prostrated—just that. She will be better—” The string of falsehoods broke off short, and with a gesture of impatience he took up a pen. “Are these all the letters?” he asked.
He had already searched among them, hoping against hope, for a letter, line, one word, from Esmeralda.
“Those are all,” said Lilias. “Ada has been attending to them;” and she looked gratefully at Lady Ada as she entered the room at that moment.
Ada’s hand, as it hung at her side, could feel the sharp edge of Norman’s letter in her pocket. Should she take it out and give it to him? She glanced at his face covertly, and its haggardness encouraged her. She had heard him say that he had not seen Esmeralda. They were still apart, wherever she might be; he still thought her guilty. She would keep the letter from him and trust to chance. Fate seemed to be playing the game for her still.
The day of the funeral arrived, and the black-clad crowd of friends and neighbors, gentle and simple, followed the old duke to his last resting-place in the huge marble vault in the crypt of Belfayre church. He had been very popular as well as great, and there were many wet eyes among the multitude; and not a few were moved to tears as much by the sight of the son—the new duke—as by the remembrance of the father; for Trafford looked like one who sorrows without hope of comfort. There was something awe-inspiring in the death-like calm of his face, in which every clear-cut feature seemed drawn and sharpened, and his most familiar friends among the mourners watched him aghast and somewhat puzzled.