When Gertrude arrived, Mrs. Bush met her with a request that she would go to his lordship at once, which implied that Mrs. Bloxam was to remain in the drawing-room. This she did, composedly occupying herself with needlework, and feeling her hopes that she should be entirely overlooked in the crisis of affairs growing stronger and stronger. It may as well be said here, once for all, that these hopes were justified. Mrs. Bloxam was never called to account by Lord Sandilands for his money, or her own conduct.
"I take it upon myself, my dear," said Lord Sandilands to his daughter, when many hours passed in close and mournful consultation between them had gone by; "as soon as I am able to move--and, you see, I am greatly better already--the arrangements shall all be made."
From the bed where he lay, the old man's eyes were turned anxiously, sadly, towards the figure of his daughter. Gertrude was seated in a deep chintz-covered chair, in the bay of the window, which overlooked a small garden of the sterile and sandy order, familiar to the memory of occasional dwellers in seaside lodging-houses. She was leaning forward, her head resting on her hands, her arms supported by a little three-legged table, her attitude full of grace and dejection. The afternoon sun tinged her pale cheek and her clustering hair, but for the moment the brilliance that was so characteristic of her appearance was gone. But she touched the old man's heart all the more keenly for the lack of brilliancy, for she was more like her mother without it,--the dead mother whom she had never seen, and whose name had as yet been barely mentioned between them.
"Yes," she said absently, drearily, "I must leave it all to you. How strange it is to me to know that I have you to help me, to leave it all to!"
"You will not pine for the excitement and applause to which you are so accustomed, Gertrude?"
"No; they have been very wearisome to me of late, since I have known how much might have been mine that never can be now."
"No indeed, my dear," said her father earnestly, "it never, never can be now; and your true courage, your true good sense is in acknowledging this at once, and consenting to turn your back upon it all promptly. You shall have none of the misery of severing these ties; I will write to Munns, and tell him I am ready to indemnify his real or imaginary losses."
"It will cost you a great deal of money," she said, still absently, still drearily.
"It is almost time that I began to spend it on you," said her father, with a very unsuccessful attempt at a smile.
The past, the present, and the future had been discussed during the hours they had passed together, and emotion had worn itself out. Steadily keeping in mind the concealment he desired to practise, and the effect he designed to produce, the old nobleman had received the confidences which his daughter--who more and more strongly felt the tie between them hour by hour, and softened under its influence--imparted to him with the utmost tenderness and indulgence, but with as little effusion as possible. He had induced her to tell him the whole truth concerning her separation from her husband; and had received the terrible revelation with calmness which would have perhaps shocked Gertrude had she not been too much absorbed in the newer, sacred sorrow of her hopeless love to perceive as keenly as was her wont, had she not also been much exhausted physically, and thus mercifully less sensible to impressions. She had also told him of Gilbert Lloyd's late pursuit of her; and at that portion of her narrative Lord Sandilands ground his still strong white teeth with furious anger, and a thrill of exultation mingled with the rage and misery of the circumstances, as he thought how utterly this villain was in his power, how soon he would set his foot upon his neck and see him writhe in impotent anguish and humiliation. But this was one of the feelings which he had to conceal from Gertrude, and he did effectually conceal it.