'It is nothing catching, I hope?' said Mrs. Calverley, pulling her skirts close round her.
'Ah, no; she is poitrinaire--consumptive, as you call it. I have been talking to her about you, telling her how nobly you have borne your present sorrow, and she is interested about you, my dear friend. She asked permission, when she recovers, to come and see you.'
The coarse compliment acted as was intended, and Pauline received Mrs. Calverley's gracious permission to absent herself for as long as was requisite.
As she came down the stairs she saw Martin Gurwood standing at the study-door. He stepped forward, and without a word placed a letter, addressed to Mrs. Claxton, into her hands.
Then Pauline went to her bedroom, and descending therefrom with a small bag in her hand, hailed a hansom, and for a second time that day was conveyed to Hendon.
In the dusk of the evening, Alice, long since attired in her bonnet and shawl, and waiting eagerly for Martin Gurwood, saw a woman alight at her door. Little Bell, who had been playing about in the garden, saw her too, and running up to Alice, cried, 'O mamma, you recollect what I told you about the dark lady? She has come again. Here she is at the gate.'
[CHAPTER VIII.]
SO FAR SUCCESSFUL.
When Martin Gurwood knew that Pauline had started again for Hendon, that there was no possibility of departing from the scheme which she had proposed, and to the carrying into effect of which he had given his reluctant consent, he felt more than ever nervous and uncomfortable. That he had made a great mistake in admitting Madame Du Tertre into his confidence at all, and that he had enormously magnified that error by permitting her to take a leading part in the plot, and to import into it mystery and a positive danger, he knew full well. How he should be able to account for his proceedings to Humphrey Statham, who, he felt sure, would be eminently dissatisfied with all that had been done, he did not know.
That was a wretched evening for Martin Gurwood. He and his mother dined in solemn state together, and during the repast and afterwards, when they were seated in the vast drawing-room, where Mrs. Calverley's worktable and reading-lamp formed a mere oasis of light in the midst of the great desert of darkness, he had to listen to an unbroken plaint, carried on in an unvaried monotone. 'Was there ever such a life as hers? What had she done that she should be so afflicted? Why was her advice never taken? If it had been, Mr. Gurwood would not have killed himself with drink; Mr. Calverley would have had nothing to do with the ironworks worry, which had undoubtedly caused his death. What was to become of the business? The arrangements made in Mr. Calverley's will sounded all very right and proper, but she very much questioned whether they would be found to work well. Was not too much mastery and power given to Mr. Jeffreys? He had been a confidential clerk certainly, but it was by no means to be argued from that that he would be either as industrious or as useful when placed in command. She could bear testimony to that from her experience of Mr. Calverley, whom she had known in both positions.' And so on, and so on.