"If she were to come back to-night, which she will not, and confess that her miserable pride and jealousy had driven her forth in a mad fit, and were to ask pardon, and be as she ought to be--God knows--humble and contrite, I would say let there be an end of it; forget it all, and strive to live happier for the future. But if she remains away to-night--well, I don't know what to say;" and the old lady heaved a very intelligible sigh--a sigh which meant that in such an event the worst had arrived.
"Yes," said Frank; his mind still dwelling on the little course he had proposed to himself;--"yes, of course, you don't think it would be right, then, to go to her--"
"Go to her!" echoed the old lady.
"Yes, go to her, and tell her how utterly wrong she had been--that there was not the slightest foundation for her suspicions; and that she had acted most unjustifiably in quitting her husband's house in the manner she has done; and--"
Old Mrs. Churchill had been sitting as if petrified, with her lips wide apart, during the delivery of this sentence; at this point she thawed into speech.
"Are you mad, Frank? has your misfortune turned your brain? You propose to go to her,--this woman, who has brought contempt on you-- and not only on you, on me and all our name,--and sue to her to come back, and box her ears playfully, and tell her what a naughty girl she has been! Do you imagine that this affair is any longer a secret, that it has not been talked over already between Mrs. Schröder's maid and your servants, between your servants and the tradespeople? Don't you know that if your wife is absent from your house to-night, the doubt will become a certainty, and that to-morrow the whole neighbourhood will be ringing with it? No!" continued the old lady; "it has come, and we must bear it. If that wicked girl--for I can't help feeling and saying that she is wicked in her present course--sees her error and repents, it will be your duty to forgive her and to take her back; but as to your humbling yourself by going to her and asking her to return, it's not to be thought of for a moment."
"I suppose you're right, mother," was all that Frank said--"I suppose you're right: we'll wait and see whether she comes back to-night."
So they waited, mother and son, through that long evening. The day died out, and the dusk came down, and the lamps were lighted in the streets, and the pattering feet grew fewer and fewer; and still those two sat without speaking, without moving, immersed in their own thoughts; and still no Barbara returned. At length Mrs. Churchill, remembering that her son had had no dinner that day, grew tenderly solicitous about his health, and, crossing to him, raised his head and pressed her lips to his, and begged him to rouse himself and eat. And Frank, who felt himself gradually going mad with the one sad strain upon his thoughts, said:
"No, mother--not here, at all events. I must shake this off, if only for a few minutes, or I shall go out of my mind. I'll take a turn in the air; and if I feel faint or to want any thing, I'll go to the Club and get it. You go home and to bed, dearest; for you must be thoroughly knocked up with all my worries, which you are compelled to share; she won't come back to-night--it's all over now; and to-morrow we must face the future, and see what we're to do with the rest of our lives."
So they kissed again, and then went out together: Frank with a dead, dull, wearying pain at his heart; and his mother, sad enough to see him so sad, but with some little consolation mingled with her grief at the feeling that this event was not unlikely to bring her and her son more together again; to give her the chance of being in more frequent and more affectionate communication with that being whom she worshipped next to her Creator; of enjoying that to her inexpressible delight, of having her son "all to herself" again.