Katharine Guyon was not a fainting woman. She had never fainted in her life, and hysterical affections she held in equal suspicion and disdain. No merciful weakness came to lessen the physical anguish she experienced, when these few lines conveyed to her shrinking soul the full assurance of the fate that had befallen her. The physical suffering of a sudden grief is always terrible, most terrible where strength reigns with tolerable equality in body and mind. Her flesh crept and burned; acute, agonising pain darted into her eyeballs, and transfixed them; a slow shivering anguish seized upon her limbs, and caused her lips to part and shudder over the clenched teeth. No cry escaped her, nor sound except a moan, half of mental pain, half of the deadly sickness, the actual nausea, which every one who has ever sustained a severe shock of pain or fear knows is its invariable accompaniment. Black rings formed themselves in the air, and dropped from under her eyes, into what seemed to her like infinite space. She wondered dimly whether this could be any thing like death; and sat there, so feeling, so wondering, she had no idea what length of time. Her maid came to her when the hour for dressing for dinner arrived, and found her pale, motionless, and tearless.
"I'm not well, Marwood," she said; "as papa is out, I need not go down. If you'll help me to undress, I will go to bed."
The woman was utterly surprised. Illness was unknown to Katharine's vigorous frame and eager spirit. She acknowledged that her mistress looked ill, and suggested sending James for a doctor.
"Not on any account," said Katharine; "I am suffering for my obstinacy in riding too long in the sun yesterday, and eating ices last night. I shall be quite well in the morning."
The woman assisted her to undress, and left her, and Katharine lay down in her bed, feeling as if she should never rise from it again. The evening fell, the beautiful autumn night succeeded the brief twilight, and the fair morning dawned, and still she lay quite motionless, tearless, sleepless; speechless too, but for one short sentence whose agony of anger and outraged feeling defied restraint. It sounded strangely in the quiet of the room:
"He was only amusing himself, after all. He dared to amuse himself with ME!"
Hester Gould had fulfilled her intention of finding out all she could about Robert Streightley's new friends, as she usually fulfilled all her intentions, quietly and completely. She had paid a friendly visit to Daniel Thacker's sisters, resident at Hampstead; and having timed her visit fortunately, or it would be more correct to say judiciously, she had met Daniel, and extracted from him all the information he was disposed to give. She was not in the least deceived in her estimate of his frankness; she knew that he had more to tell respecting Mr. Guyon and his handsome daughter (Mr. Thacker called her "stunning") than the general facts into the disclosure of which she led him; but she was not unreasonable, and she read character accurately. She had not seen much of Daniel Thacker; for not being mistress of her own time, she could rarely visit the dwellers at Corby House at the hours which found that gentleman in the bosom of his family; but she had seen enough of him to understand him much better than most of his acquaintances did, and to feel a comfortable assurance that she could gain an influence over him, if any thing should occur to make it worth her while to do so.
Daniel Thacker possessed at least one sterling virtue--he was an excellent brother. Nothing in reason and within the compass of his means did he deny the handsome, red-lipped, dark-browed girls, who strongly resembled him, and were even more Jewish-looking than he. They had a good house, a comfortable establishment, a sufficiency of society among their own persuasion generally, a sufficiency of theatre- and concert-going, and plenty of the savoury meat which their souls loved. They would have been happier perhaps--or they thought so--if their beloved brother, whom they devoutly believed to be the handsomest and most elegant man in Christendom or Jewry, had lived with them at Corby House; but he had fully explained the impossibility on "business" grounds, and the docile Hebrews, Rebecca and Rachel, acknowledged the plea without hesitation. They were among the firmest, warmest, and most useful of Hester Gould's friends, and they had been for a time her pupils. They had perseveringly spread her fame abroad among their habitués; and as music is an invariable taste among the Jews, and their musical entertainments are splendid and numerous, their praises had done her solid service, and Hester's time was fully filled by very lucrative engagements.
Rachel and Rebecca had been infinitely delighted by Hester's arrival to pass the evening with them, and had gushingly expressed their pleasure.
"Tuesday evening too, Daniel's evening: how delightful!--he hardly ever misses. I am so glad; isn't she a dear?" said Miss Rachel in a sort of monologue, while she applied her large red lips several times to Hester's olive cheek.