“I won’t, dear, I won’t. I was only going to find Nina, because there isn’t the ghost of a bell in the house.”
“Yes, I should like Nina,” said the girl, settling down again. Teresa called from the door, and the little woman hurried in with her long “Eh-h-h-h-h!” at sight of the darkened room.
“It is the storm,” Teresa explained.
“Eh, the storm? It will not come yet,” said Nina, with the almost unerring certainty by which an Italian peasant foretells the weather. “The signorina may sleep, and I will be here, but the storm not yet. Ecco!”
Sylvia seemed content. Teresa flew to her grandmother’s room, longing to give vent to her pent-up indignation. She felt herself in the most hateful position in the world, and, woman-like, flung the whole weight of blame on Wilbraham. But Mrs Brodrick, whose eyes had long been open, was juster.
“It was time it ended,” she said. “It has been a dreary mistake from first to last, and every day would have made it worse.”
“I suppose so. And yet, and yet—”
“Yes?”
“If you had heard! Not one of us could have taken it so well. I don’t think she once remembered that it was hard on herself. Oh, I shall never forgive him!”
“Ah!”