“I am afraid that Trafford must be anxious about his wife,” said one. “She is at Deepdale—that place of Lady Wyndover’s, you know—ill. I saw it in the papers. I hope she isn’t worse than we think.”
When the funeral was over and the somber guests had departed, Trafford shut himself up in the library and remained there alone till far into the night. There was a mass of papers on the table before him—for with his dukedom his new responsibilities had commenced and were clamoring for attention—but he looked at none of them. He could not even think of his dead father. Esmeralda, Esmeralda—it was all Esmeralda!
In the morning Lilias came to him with the red rings round her eyes.
“Do you think I might go up to Esmeralda, Trafford?” she said. “Ada has offered to stay—she is so good and kind—and I could come back this evening.”
She put the question wistfully, and was rather startled by his manner of receiving it and refusing it.
“Certainly not,” he said, almost harshly. “You can not leave Belfayre just now. You must remain here. Besides, I am going to her to-day.” He felt that he should go mad if he remained in the vast house with the echoes of Esmeralda’s voice and laugh alone breaking the silence; for wherever he went he seemed to see and hear her, and everything he saw and touched seemed associated with her.
He went up to town and wandered from his rooms to the club, from the club to his rooms. Men and women greeted him with hushed voices and sympathetic looks, and he returned their greetings with the unnatural calmness which had fallen upon him since he had discovered her flight; but very often he did not know to whom he was speaking. He was leading a life in death, moving and speaking like a man in a dream. He had promised Lady Wyndover that he would seek for Esmeralda at once; but he did not seek for her; he felt that it was of no use. By this time she and Norman were hidden away beyond pursuit.
And he missed Norman by just a few yards and a few minutes. For as he walked out of the Marlborough, with his head bent low and his hot eyes fixed on the pavement, Norman turned the corner of St. James’s Street. They were actually within hail of each other. If they had but known it!
The crisis they had been anxiously waiting for at Oakfield was past, and Lady Druce was better; so much better that Norman could leave her for a few hours, though not long enough to go down to Belfayre. He had seen the paragraph in the papers stating that Esmeralda was ill at Deepdale, and he thought that he might, at any rate, run down there and hear how she was. Lady Wyndover would see him for a few minutes, and he should have tidings of—of all at Belfayre, and Lilias. And Lady Druce urged him to go.
“I am going to get well quite quickly now, dear, and”—she added, mother-like—“I don’t like to think of your being shut up here in this dull place. Yes; go, Norman!”