Miss Teller, the man answered, was absent from the city; but a telegraphic dispatch had been sent, and she was on her way home. There was no relative at present with Mrs. Heathcote; friends she was not able to see. And he looked with some curiosity at this plainly dressed young person, who stood there quite unconscious, apparently, of the atmosphere of his manner. And yet Mr. Simpson had a very well regulated manner, founded upon the best models—a manner which had never heretofore failed in its effect. With a preliminary cough, he began to close the door.
"Wait," said this young person, almost as though she had some authority. She drew forth a little note-book, tore out a leaf, wrote a line upon it, and handed him the improvised card. "Please take this to Mrs. Heathcote," she said. "I think she will see me."
See her—see her—when already members of the highest circles of the city had been refused! With a slight smile of superior scorn, Simpson took the little slip, and leaving the stranger on the steps, went within, partially closing the door behind him. But in a few minutes he hastily returned, and with him was a sedate middle-aged woman, whom he called Mrs. Bagshot, and who, although quiet in manner, seemed decidedly to outrank him.
"Will you come with me, if you please?" she said deferentially, addressing Anne. "Mrs. Heathcote would like to see you without delay." She led the way with a quiet unhurrying step up a broad stairway, and opened a door. In the darkened room, on a couch, a white form was lying. Bagshot withdrew, and Anne, crossing the floor, sank down on her knees beside the couch.
"Helen!" she said, in a broken voice; "oh, Helen! Helen!"
The white figure did not stir, save slowly to disengage one hand and hold it out. But Anne, leaning forward, tenderly lifted the slight form in her arms, and held it close to her breast.
"I could not help coming," she said. "Poor Helen! poor, poor Helen!"
She smoothed the fair hair away from the small face that lay still and white upon her shoulder, and at that moment she pitied the stricken wife so intensely that she forgot the rival, or rather made herself one with her; for in death there is no rivalry, only a common grief. Helen did not speak, but she moved closer to Anne, and Anne, holding her in her arms, bent over her, soothing her with loving words, as though she had been a little child.
The stranger remained with Mrs. Heathcote nearly two hours. Then she went away, and Simpson, opening the door for her, noticed that her veil was closely drawn, so that her face was concealed. She went up the street to the end of the block, turned the corner, and disappeared. He was still standing on the steps, taking a breath of fresh air, his portly person and solemn face expressing, according to his idea, a dignified grief appropriate to the occasion and the distinction of the family he served—a family whose bereavements even were above the level of ordinary sorrows, when his attention was attracted by the appearance of a boy in uniform, bearing in his hand an orange-brown envelope. In the possibilities of that well-known hue of hope and dread he forgot for the moment even his occupation of arranging in his own mind elegant formulas with which to answer the inquiries constantly made at the door of the bereaved mansion. The boy ascended the steps; Bagshot, up stairs, with her hand on the knob of Mrs. Heathcote's door, saw him, and came down. The dispatch was for her mistress; she carried it to her. The next instant a cry rang through the house. Captain Heathcote was safe.
The message was as follows: