The visit of poor Nora at night had aroused at once her suspicions, her jealousy, and her compassion. She half believed that in this girl she saw her rival in her husband's affections, the cause of her own repudiation and—what was more bitter still to the childless Hebrew wife—the mother of his children! This had been very terrible! But to the Jewish woman the child of her husband, even if it is at the same time the child of her rival, is as sacred as her own. Berenice was loyal, conscientious, and compassionate. In the anguish of her own deeply wounded and bleeding heart she had pitied and pleaded for poor Nora—had even asserted her own authority as mistress of the house, for the sake of protecting Nora: her husband's other wife, as in the merciful construction of her gentle spirit she had termed the unhappy girl! But then, my readers, you must remember that Berenice was a Jewess. This poor unloved Leah would have sheltered the beloved Rachel. We all know how her generous intentions were carried out. A second and a third day passed, and still there came no news of Herman.
Berenice, prostrated with the heart-wasting sickness of hope deferred, kept her own room. Mrs. Brudenell was indignant at her son, not for his neglect of his lovely young wife, but for his indifference to a wealthy countess! She deferred her journey to Washington in consideration of her noble daughter-in-law, and in the hope of her son's speedy reappearance and reconciliation with his wife, when, she anticipated, they would all go to Washington together, where the Countess of Hurstmonceux would certainly be the lioness and the Misses Brudenell the belles of the season.
On the evening of the fourth day, while Berenice lay exhausted upon the sofa of her bedroom, her maid entered the chamber saying:
"Please, my lady, you remember the young woman that was here on Friday evening?"
"Yes!" Berenice was up on her elbow in an instant, looking eagerly into the girl's face.
"Your ladyship ordered me to make inquiries about her, but I could get no news except from the old man who took her home out of the snowstorm and who came back and said she was ill."
"I know! I know! You told me that before. But you have heard something else. What is it?"
"My lady, the old woman Dinah, who went to nurse her, never came back till to-day; that is the reason I couldn't hear any more news until to-night."
"Well, well, well? Your news! Out with it, girl!"
"My lady, she is dead and buried!"