“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Layton, “how are you feeling now?”
“How can you ask?” answered the unhappy woman, “when everything is ended for me—that is how I feel.”
“But, my dear Rachel, this is folly; everything is not ended for you, and you have, I am sure, many years of happy life before you yet.”
“Happy life! Very happy life—alone in the world.”
“You may not always be alone, Rachel, and I have come here just now, my dear, especially to speak of your future.”
“I have no future.”
“My dear child, yes; you have had a great loss—”
“No one knows what he was to me!” interrupted Mrs. Temple, passionately, and she began to wander up and down the room wringing her hands as she went. “My darling, my boy, and to think that after to-morrow I shall see him no more—that they will take away from me even what is left!”
“Rachel, has Mr. Temple told you that—his nephew is coming to-morrow?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Temple, listlessly.