“I have brought you here, Mary, to tell you something that I have heard since we came back to-day. But, my dear, it has confused my mind till I forget what I am saying. You will forgive me, won't you?” Her companion begged her to defer it until another time, and not to trouble herself by trying to remember it; but Mrs. Lupton interrupted her with a hysterical laugh.
“The pain is not because I forget it, but because I can do nothing but remember it. I cannot get rid of it. It haunts me wherever I go; for, do you know, Mary, Walter Lupton grows worse and worse. I can never live under it; I know I cannot! And, as for beds, you and I will sleep in this next chamber, so that if there be women's feet in the night, we shall overhear it all. Now, keep awake, Mary, for sleep is of no use at all to me: and, besides that, she told me the baby was as like her master as snow to the clouds; so that what is to become of me I do not know.—I cannot tell, indeed!”
Here Mrs. Lupton wrung her hands, and wept bitterly.
Miss Shirley grew terrified at this incoherent discourse, and with an unconscious degree of earnestness begged her to go down stairs.
“Never heed,—never heed,” said she, turning towards the table, and apparently forgetting her grief: “there will come an end. Days do not last for ever, nor nights either.”
“Do not sigh so deeply,” observed her companion. “I have heard say it wears the heart out, though that is idle.”
“Nay,—nay,” replied Mrs. Lupton, “the woman that first said that spoke fairly, for surely she had a bad husband. It wears mine out, truly; though not too soon for him. You know now that he cares nothing for me.”
“But, let us hope it is not so,” replied Miss Shirley, somewhat re-assured from the more sane discourse of her entertainer.
“And yet,” continued Mrs. Lupton, as though unconscious of the last remark, “I have striven to commend myself to him as my best abilities would enable me. Mary, turn the glass to me. It is almost dark. How is this bodice? Is the unlaced shape of a country girl more handsome than the turn of this?”
“Oh, no—no—no!” answered the young lady, “nothing could be more handsome.”