‘It was very wrong,’ feebly said Edna; ‘I drew him into it! I loved him so much; and they all talked so after I went in the boat with him, that I thought my character was gone, and I begged him to save me from them. It was my fault, sir; and I’ve the punishment. You’ll not betray him, sir; only don’t let that young lady, your sister, trust to him. Not yet. My baby and I shall soon be out of her way.’
The calm languor of her tone was almost fearful, and even as she spoke a shuddering seized her, making her tremble convulsively, her teeth knocking together, and the couch shaking under her.
‘You must have instant advice,’ cried Robert. ‘I will fetch some one.’
‘You won’t betray him,’ almost shrieked Edna. ‘A little while—stay a little while—he will be free of me.’
There was delirium in look and voice, and he was compelled to pause and assure her that he was only going for the doctor, and would come again before taking any other step.
It was not till the medical man had been summoned that his mind recurred to the words about his sister. He might have dismissed them as merely the jealous suspicion of the deserted wife, but that he remembered Lucilla’s hint as to an attachment between Owen and Phœbe, and he knew that such would have been most welcome to Miss Charlecote.
‘My Phœbe, my one bright spot!’ was his inward cry, ‘must your guileless happiness be quenched! O, I would rather have it all over again myself than that one pang should come near you, in your sweetness and innocence, the blessing of us all! And I not near to guard nor warn! What may not be passing even now? Unprincipled, hard-hearted deceiver, walking at large among those gentle, unsuspicious women—trading on their innocent trust! Would that I had disclosed the villainy I knew of!’
His hand clenched, his brow lowered, and his mouth was set so savagely, that the passing policeman looked in wonder from the dangerous face to the clerical dress.
Early next morning he was at No. 8, and learnt that Mrs. Brook, as the maid called her, had been very ill all night, and that the doctor was still with her. Begging to see the doctor, Robert found that high fever had set in, an aggravation of the low nervous fever that had been consuming her strength all the spring, and her condition was already such that there was
little hope of her surviving the present attack. She had been raving all night about the young lady with whom Mr. Sandbrook had been walking by moonlight, and when the door of the little adjoining bedroom was open, her moans and broken words were plainly audible.