"You have always entertained that opinion, I believe, ma'am."
"Oh, but, my dear boy, I think he is demented in real downright earnest now. I do indeed. I'm sure the things that poor weak-minded Mrs. Thimbleby tells me about him——! He has delusions of all kinds; hears voices, sees visions. I should say it is a case of what your father would have called 'melancholy madness.' Really, Algy, I frequently think about it. It is quite alarming sometimes in the night if I happen to wake up, to remember that there is a lunatic sleeping overhead. You know he might take it into his head to murder one! Or if he only killed himself—which is perhaps more likely—it would be a highly unpleasant circumstance. I could not possibly remain in the lodgings, you know. Out of the question! And so I told that silly Thimbleby. I said to her, 'Observe, Mrs. Thimbleby, if any dreadful thing happens in this house—a suicide or anything of that sort—I shall leave you at an hour's notice. I wish you well, and I have no desire to withdraw my patronage from you, but you could not expect me to look over a coroner's inquest.'"
Algernon threw his head back and laughed heartily. "That was a fair warning, at any rate!" said he. "And if Mr. David Powell has any consideration for his landlady, he will profit by it—that is to say, supposing Mrs. Thimbleby tells him of it. What did she say?"
"Oh, she merely cried and whimpered, and hid her face in her apron. She is terribly weak-minded, poor creature."
Castalia had been listening in silence. All at once she said, "How many miserable people there are!"
"Very true, Cassy; provincial postmasters and others. And part of my miserable lot is to go down to the office again for an hour to-night."
"My poor boy!" "Go to the office again to-night?" exclaimed his mother and his wife simultaneously.
"Yes; it is now half-past eight. I have an appointment. At least—I shall be back in an hour, I have no doubt."
Algernon walked off with an air of good-humoured resignation, smiling and shrugging his shoulders. The two women, left alone together, took his departure very differently. Mrs. Errington was majestically wrathful with a system of things which involved so much discomfort to a scion of the house of Ancram. She was of opinion that some strong representations should be made to the ministry; that Parliament should be appealed to. And she rather enjoyed her own eloquence, and was led on by it to make some most astounding assertions, and utter some scathing condemnations with an air of comfortable self-satisfaction. Castalia, on the other hand, remained gloomily taciturn, huddled into an easy-chair by the hearth, and staring fixedly at the fire.
It has been recorded in these pages that Mrs. Errington did not much object to silence on the part of her companion for the time being; she only required an assenting or admiring interjection now and then, to enable her to carry on what she supposed to be a very agreeable conversation, but she did like her confidante to do that much towards social intercourse. And she liked, moreover, to see some look of pleasure, interest, or sympathy on the confidante's face. Looking at Castalia's moody and abstracted countenance, she could not but remember the gentle listener in whom she had been wont for so many years to find a sweet response to all her utterances.