So saying, Mr. Potts made his simple outdoor toilet; and the two gentlemen went out, and took their way towards the resort of omnibuses, eagerly discussing the matter in hand as they went, and Mr. Bowker finding himself unexpectedly transformed from the active into the passive party.
It was agreed between them that Geoffrey should not be informed of Bowker's presence in the house, as he would naturally be impatient to learn the result of the mission with which he had intrusted him; and that result it was their present object to conceal.
Fortune favoured the wishes of Bowker and Charley. Mrs. Ludlow was with her son; and in the drawing-room, which was resuming somewhat of its former orderly and pleasant appearance, they found Miss Maurice and Til. The two girls were looking sad and weary, and Til was hardly brightened up by Charley's entrance, for he looked so much more grave than usual, that she guessed at once he had heard something new and important. The little party were too vitally interested in Geoffrey and his fortunes, and the occasion was too solemn for any thing of ceremony; and when Charley Potts had briefly introduced Bowker to Annie Maurice, he took Til's hand in his, and said,
"Til, Geoffrey's wife has been found--alone, and very ill--dying, as we believe!"
"You are quite sure, William?"
"I am quite sure, Geoffrey. Do you think I would deceive you, or take any thing for granted myself, without seeing and hearing what is so important to you? She is well cared for in every respect. Your own care, when she needed it before, was not more tender or more effective. Be satisfied, dear old Geoff; be content."
"You saw her--you really saw her; and she spoke kindly of me?" asked Geoffrey with a pitiable eagerness which pained Bowker to witness.
"I did. Yes, have I not told you again and again--" Then there was a moment's silence and Bowker thought, if she were not dying, how terrible this tenderness towards her would be, how inexplicable to all the world but him, how ruinous to Geoffrey; but as it was, it did not matter: it would soon be only the tenderness of memory, the pardon of the grave.
Geoffrey was sitting in an arm-chair by the bedroom window which overlooked the pretty flower-garden and the lawn. He was very weak still, but health was returning, and with it the power of acute mental suffering, which severe bodily illness mercifully deadens. This had been a dreadful day to him. When he was able to sit up and look around the room from which all the graceful suggestive traces of a woman's presence had been carefully removed; when he saw the old home look upon every thing before his eyes (for whom the idea of home was for ever desecrated and destroyed), the truth presented itself to him as it had never before done, in equal horror and intensity, since the day the woman he loved had struck him a blow by her words which had nearly proved mortal. Would it had been so! he thought, as his large brown eyes gazed wearily out upon the lawn and the flower-beds, and then were turned upon the familiar objects in the chamber, and closed with a shudder. His large frame look gaunt and worn, and his hands rested listlessly upon the sides of his chair. He had requested them to leave him alone for a little, that he might rest previous to seeing Bowker.
From the window at which Geoffrey sat he could see the nurse walking monotonously up and down the gravel-walk which bounded his little demesne with the child in her arms. Sometimes she stopped to pluck a flower and give it to the baby, who would laugh with delight and then throw it from him. Geoffrey watched the pair for a little, and then turned his head wearily away and put his question to Bowker, who was seated beside him, and who looked at him furtively with glances of the deepest concern.