“But you are not old. That is nonsense.”
“I am two-and-twenty. When you last saw me, I was not nineteen.”
“Well, you ought not to have changed so much in less than three years. Never mind,” added he affectionately, seeing that his words seemed to depress his sister-in-law—“I love you just as much as ever; and you will soon get back your color when you get out of London and forget all about Harry again.”
And he kissed her and bade her good-bye most unwillingly; for the following morning he had to go back to the Elms, to see George about the expenses of a “coach” to cram him for the examination he would have to go through.
Annie went up-stairs to her rooms—she could afford to have a sitting-room now—feeling ashamed of the pain his remarks upon her looks had given her. It was a fact she had known for a long time now, that her beauty had fallen off, so that there were barely traces of it left. A thin, brown face, without a tinge of pink in the cheeks, and with scarcely more than a tinge in the lips, eyes from which the brightness of hope and joy had gone, and a weary, worn expression, were what less than three years of lonely work and disappointment had left of her youthful prettiness. No woman, and especially an actress, can suffer the sense of lost beauty to be suddenly brought home to her without a pang, and Annie’s vanity was strong enough to make her cry at William’s evident regret.
“Perhaps Harry himself would not know me,” she thought to herself, “and would be disgusted if I were pointed out to him as his wife.”
So she cried herself to sleep.
When William arrived at the Elms next day, he was even less inclined than usual to meet his brother Harry on friendly terms. For he looked upon the latter as being the cause of Annie’s exile—so he chose to consider her voluntary flight—and therefore as the cause also of all her struggles and the terrible alteration in her looks. So the lad avoided his brother as much as he could until dinnertime, when there was no help for their coming in contact with each other, as their places were set side by side. An unlucky accident brought the name of the half-forgotten wife into the conversation. Wilfred rallied his youngest brother, who had not been at the Elms for some time, upon being “so confoundedly abstemious.”
“One would think little Annie were still here reading you sermons across the table with her pretty eyes,” said he.
The blood rushed to the lad’s face, for Harry uttered an oath at the mention of his wife.