She sat trembling, yet not altogether hopeless; very humble and yet strong, with the strength that the inward consciousness of deeply loving—not of being loved, but of loving—always gives to a woman, and waited till Dr. Grey came home.
When the parlor door opened she rushed forward, thinking it was he, but it was only Phillis—Phillis, looking insolent, self-important, contemptuous, as she held out to her mistress a letter.
"There! I've took it in for once, and given it to you, by yourself, as he bade me, but I'll never take in another. I'm an honest woman, and my master has been a good master to me."
"Phillis!" cried Mrs. Grey, astonished. But when she saw the letter she was astonished no more.
The tinted perfumed paper, the large seal, the dainty handwriting, all were familiar of old.
Fierce indignation, unutterable contempt, and then a writhing sense of personal shame, as if she were somehow accountable for this insult, swept by turns over Christian's soul, until she recollected that she must betray nothing; for more than her own sake—her husband's—she must not put herself in her servant's power.
So she did not throw the letter in the fire, or stamp upon it, or do any of the frantic things she was tempted to do; she held it in her hand like a common note, and said calmly.
"Who brought this? and when did, it come?"
"Last night, only I couldn't find you. It was nigh dropping into Miss Gascoigne's hands, and a pretty mess that would have been. And I warn you—you had better mind what you are about—Miss Susan Bennett told me all about it; and a nice little story it is, too, for a married lady. And Miss Gascoigne has scented it out, I'll be bound and if Dr. Grey once gets hold of it—"
"Stop!" said Christian, firmly, though she felt her very lips turning white. "You are under some extraordinary delusion. There is nothing to be got hold of. Take this letter to my husband's study—it is his affair. I have no communications whatever with Sir Edwin Uniacke."