But he was a gentleman, his heart was soft, so there was nothing for it save to accept the situation with the best grace he could. And the grace came, to his surprise, with such exceeding ease, despite his ill-usage, that he had to drive himself not towards patience, but to impatience, as he listened to Aura's tale of ignorance and loneliness.
A man with money behind him, or rather money with a man behind it, can do all things save avoid vulgarity, ensure happiness, or escape death.
By the evening, therefore, Ned Blackborough was able to give Aura a most sympathetic and affectionate telegram from her husband.
"We ran him to earth in Vienna, where he had gone on business," said Ned, refraining, why he scarcely knew, from saying also that Ted had been found in a Biergarten, and that he had left strict orders that telegrams were not to be forwarded. "I got him through Hirsch, but he again was unfortunately in Paris; they have some big scoop on hand. But it is all right now, and he should be home to-morrow. As for the rest, you need not bother. It is all settled, and I will tell Martha what to expect. So I will say good-bye."
She could not stifle down the quick appeal, "Must you go?"
"Of course, I must go," he replied roughly, "I ought never to have come, and I am sorry I did, even though I have helped you. Good-bye."
She watched him put on his greatcoat without another word, almost angry with herself for feeling so inexpressibly mean. She would have liked to tell him that she had been unable to wait, that even if she had waited her answer would have been the same; but she felt that all this must come afterwards when he had had time.
And then suddenly he turned to her again.
"I'll leave this here, I think," he said, putting a flat parcel he had taken out from his pocket on the piano, "you might while an hour or so by looking at them. It--it isn't all cussedness, Mrs. Cruttenden; I should like you to see them. I should like you to know something of it, once! Good-bye; throw them into the fire when you have done with them. I shall not want them again."
When he had gone she went over to the piano, and taking the packet crouched down with it beside the fading fire-light, which she stirred into a blaze. To other eyes the room might have looked inexpressibly dreary, large, bare, empty, even the very sofa, imported into it for the old man's invalid use, taken away for him when the stairs became too much for his strength. But Aura was accustomed to the bareness; it had been part of her life always.