The whole house seemed empty as she came in. She went to her room without meeting any one. They could not long have finished tea. She looked into the drawing-room as she went by. No tea had been left out for her.
Her bed was prepared to sleep in. There were clean towels and a clean mat on the dressing table; but the sign by which they always welcomed each other's return after absence was missing. There were no flowers in the room. The garden was full-yielding. Flowers in profusion were withering in the beds. There was no bowl of them in her room.
It was here, indeed it was everywhere, she felt the presence of Jane. It was not Hannah, now that she had time to think it out, it was not Fanny, but Jane she had come back to meet. Jane with the unyielding spirit of those laws Mary had found consciousness of, against which she set herself in no less unyielding antagonism.
It was bitterness, as it is with so many, that had ranged Jane in battle against her sex. She made no allowances. Almost with a fierce joy, she kept to the very letter of the law. Hers was the justice of revenge and there are no circumstances can mitigate one woman in another's eyes when she transgresses as Mary had done.
In her room she waited, unpacking her things, then sitting and looking out into the garden until the bell rang for their evening meal. With sensations divided between a high temper of courage and a feeling of being outcast in that house she had known so long as home, she went down to the dining-room.
They were already seated. Jane was carving the joint. She did not look up. Fanny raised her eyes in silence. The wish to give her welcome was overawed by wonder of curiosity. It was Hannah who said--
"You told us in your letter you were coming back by this afternoon's coach, but we weren't quite sure."
Caught in an instant's impulse, with an effort Mary controlled herself from saying--
"Didn't you do what Jane told you to do?"
She held her tongue and sat down.