So Mrs Stanley went to Yorkshire, and Clare to London, and Aspinshaw was left desolate. Thornsett Edge was advertised as 'To let,' and Roland and his aunt took up quiet housekeeping in Chelsea. Litvinoff, by way of practising the economy which was growing more and more necessary every day, took rooms in Maida Vale. The mill hands dispersed far and wide, and the mill, the heart of Thornsett, having ceased to beat, the whole place seemed to be dead, and, presently, to decay. No one would live in the village. It was too far from any other work, and the place took upon itself a haunted, ghostly air—as if forms in white might be expected to walk its deserted streets at midnight, or to show themselves through the broken, cobwebby panes of the windows which used to be so trim and bright and clean. It was a ghastly change for the houses that, poor as they were, had been, after all, homes to so many people for so many years.
When Alice Hatfield thought of her old home, she never thought of it but as she had last seen it—neat and cheerful with the plants in pots on the long window-ledge, and all the familiar furniture and household effects in their old places. It was pain to think of it even like that. It would have been agony to her could she have seen it naked and bare, with its well-known rooms cold and empty, its hearths grey and fireless.
And she thought of her home a good deal during the weeks when she lay ill in Mrs Toomey's upper room; for the illness that had come upon her on that Sunday when Mr Toomey had had tea with Petrovitch had been a longer and more serious affair than any one had fancied it would be. When she had first known that another life was bound up in her own, the knowledge had been almost maddening; now, the terror, the misery, and the fatigue which she had undergone when first she knew it, had themselves put an end to what had caused them, and Alice was free from the fear of the responsibility which had seemed so terrible to her. But she was not glad. She was amazed at the contradiction in her own heart, but as she lay thinking of all the past—of what she thought was her own wrong-doing, and of the home she had left—it seemed to her that what was lost to her was the only thing that could have reconciled her to her life, with all its bitter memories. If only Litvinoff's child had lain on her arm—if she could have lived in the hope of seeing it smile into her eyes—it seemed to her that she would not have wanted to die so much. And with this inexplicable weakness Mrs Toomey, strange to say, seemed to sympathise.
'There's no understanding women,' as Toomey was wont to remark.
All the expenses of Alice's illness were borne by Petrovitch, who bade Mrs Toomey spare no expense in making 'Mrs Litvinoff' as comfortable as might be. When at last Alice began to grow better he came to see her very often, brought her books and flowers, and was as tenderly thoughtful of her, as anxious to gratify her every possible wish, as a brother could have been.
'You are too good to me,' she said one day, looking at him with wet eyes as he stood by her sofa and put into her hand some delicate snowdrops. 'I do not deserve to have people so kind to me. Why is it?'
'I told you,' he answered gravely. 'I was once your husband's dearest friend, and I have a right to do all for you that I can. How did you like the book I sent you?'
Alice used to look forward to his coming. He always cheered her. He never spoke of her or of himself, but always of some matter impersonal and interesting. The books he lent her were the books that lead to talking; and as she grew stronger in body her mind strengthened too, and for the first time she tasted the delight of following and understanding the larger questions of life. Every one, even her lover, had always treated her somewhat as a child, and Petrovitch was the first person who ever seemed to think it worth while to explain things to her. She had not had the education which makes clear thinking easy; but she was young, and had still youth's faculty for learning quickly. Her growing interest in outside matters tended—as Petrovitch had meant it to do—to divert her mind from her own troubles; and when at last she was able to take up the easier and lighter work he had found for her, she was able to look at life