Her mother was by her side in a moment, while I stood looking stupidly on, articulating hoarsely and with difficulty—
'The letter! Is it the letter!'
Mrs. Ellmer snatched the paper out of her daughter's hands so violently that she tore it, and supporting Babiole with one arm, read the letter through to the end, while I kept my eyes fixed upon her in a tumult of feelings I did not dare to analyse. As she read the last word she tossed it over to me with her light eyes flashing like steel.
'Read it, read it!' she cried, as the paper fell at my feet. 'See what sort of a husband you have given my poor child!'
The words and the action roused Babiole, who had scarcely moved except to shiver in her mother's arms. She drew herself away as if stung back to life, and a painful rush of blood flowed to her face and neck as she made two staggering steps forward, picked up the letter, and walked quietly, noiselessly, with her head bent and her whole frame drooping with shame, out of the room. Mrs. Ellmer would have followed, but I stopped her.
'Don't go,' I said in a husky voice. 'Leave her to herself a little while first. If she wants comforting, it will come with more force later when she has got over the first shock. What was it?'
'Oh, nothing,' said Mrs. Ellmer, who had become more acid on her daughter's behalf than she had ever been on her own. 'Nothing but what every married woman must expect.'
'Well, and what's that?'
She gave a little grating laugh.
'You a man and you ask that!'