The first thing they saw was a train of violet-colored velvet, half hidden by the table.
Compton ran forward with a cry of dismay.
It was Lady Bassett, in a dead swoon, her face as white as her neck and arms, and these as white and smooth as satin.
CHAPTER XLII.
LADY BASSETT was carried to her room, and did not reappear. She kept her own apartments, and her health declined so rapidly that Sir Charles sent for Dr. Willis. He prescribed for the body, but the disease lay in the mind. Martyr to an inward struggle, she pined visibly, and her beautiful eyes began to shine like stars, preternaturally large. She was in a frightful condition: she longed to tell the truth and end it all; but then she must lose her adored husband's respect, and perhaps his love; and she had not the courage. She saw no way out of it but to die and leave her confession; and, as she felt that the agony of her soul was killing her by degrees, she drew a somber resignation from that.
She declined to see Reginald. She could not bear the sight of him.
Compton came to her many times a day, with a face full of concern, and even terror. But she would not talk to him of herself.
He brought her all the news he heard, having no other way to cheer her.
One day he told her there were robbers about. Two farmhouses had been robbed, a thing not known in these parts for many years.