She had to wait long, for in her eagerness she had arrived much too early. She walked up and down the frozen gravel-path, reading the inscriptions on the grave-stones, stamping her feet to keep them warm, and listening impatiently to the sounds of alternate chanting, reading and hymn-singing, that issued from the building. Then there came, what appeared to her outside the church to be a long silence. This, she knew, must be the sermon.
"Curse that parson! How long he is with his Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly!" she muttered to herself. "When will he come to his Lastly? Ah! there is the final hymn at last. Now for the collection, and the respectable crowd will pour out to their early Sunday dinners. We will see what you look like now, Mrs. Henry Duncan. If you look happy, I must find something to check your joy without delay."
But Susan was to be disappointed this day. She stood by the side of the path, her thick veil drawn over her face to prevent recognition, and watched all the congregation as they came out. But she saw neither Dr. Duncan nor his wife. This puzzled her a good deal, for she knew that Mary had become very regular in her attendance at church.
She went there again on the following Sunday, and then she saw Dr. Duncan come out alone at the conclusion of the service. She longed to go up to him and learn what was the cause of his wife's absence, but she felt afraid of the doctor, and did not relish the idea of confronting him.
But she carefully scanned his face, and thought she could read much anxiety on it. "I suppose Mary is ill," she pondered, "I wonder what it is, but I will soon find that out."
A few days afterwards, the wind having changed, the weather became delightfully mild and pleasant. It was the birthday of the young spring, a glorious sunny morning, when Susan, who had been fretting herself with curiosity, at last made up her mind to take a bold step. She would call at the doctor's house on some pretence or other when he was out, and discover what had happened to Mary.
As usual she went on foot. Her route lay through the Regent's Park. She was passing along a path, bordered by tall shrubberies, meditating on what she was about to do, on what she should say to Mary in case they met, when she perceived two women walking slowly towards her who evidently bore the relation to each other of mistress and maid.
When they approached nearer, she recognised in the mistress the very woman she was seeking—Yes! there could be no doubt about it—she had found her enemy at last.
There was a seat in a little recess among the bushes. Susan went to it and sat down, concealing her face as much as possible, but closely watching Mary as she went by. Susan saw that Mary walked on with a step that seemed mechanical, as if she was not conscious of what she was doing, or where she was. She looked neither to the right nor to the left, her eyes were directed to the ground. She did not address or notice in any way her companion, and appeared as one wholly absorbed by a hopeless melancholy.
"Why, she must have gone mad again!" thought Susan, and an incontrollable desire seized her to rise from her seat and address her victim—to satisfy herself as to the correctness of the suspicion. She was just on the point of following the impulse—Mary was now close by her—when an astonished look came suddenly to her face; she sank again upon the seat and sat still, allowing the two women to pass out of sight without disclosing her identity.