"Wyant's version is different. He says Bessy would have recovered—he says Garford thought so too."
"And what does she answer? She denies it?"
"No. She admits that Garford was in doubt. But she says the chance was too remote—the pain too bad...that's her cue, naturally!"
Mrs. Ansell, leaning back in her chair, with hands meditatively stretched along its arms, gave herself up to silent consideration of the fragmentary statements cast before her. The long habit of ministering to her friends in moments of perplexity and distress had given her an almost judicial keenness in disentangling and coordinating facts incoherently presented, and in seizing on the thread of motive that connected them; but she had never before been confronted with a situation so poignant in itself, and bearing so intimately on her personal feelings; and she needed time to free her thoughts from the impending rush of emotion.
At last she raised her head and said: "Why did Mr. Amherst let her come to you, instead of coming himself?"
"He knows nothing of her being here. She persuaded him to wait a day, and as soon as he had gone to the mills this morning she took the first train to town."
"Ah——" Mrs. Ansell murmured thoughtfully; and Mr. Langhope rejoined, with a conclusive gesture: "Do you want more proofs of panic-stricken guilt?"
"Oh, guilt—" His friend revolved her large soft muff about a drooping hand. "There's so much still to understand."
"Your mind does not, as a rule, work so slowly!" he said with some asperity; but she paid no heed to his tone.
"Amherst, for instance—how long has he known of this?" she continued.