"Yes. Oh, if that could be!"
She caught the girl's hand in her hot palms, and seemed to entreat her for a propitious word. Irene was very still, thinking; and at length she smiled.
"Who can say? Olga is good and clever——"
"It might have been; I know it might. But after this?"
"More likely than not," said Irene, with a half-absent look, "this would help to bring it about."
"Dear, only your marriage could have changed him—nothing else. Oh, I am sure, nothing else! He has the warmest and truest heart!"
Irene sat with bowed head, her lips compressed; she smiled again, but more faintly. In the silence there sounded a soft tap at the door.
"I will see who it is," said Irene.
Olga stood without, holding a letter. She whispered that the handwriting of the address (to Mrs. Hannaford) was Piers Otway's, and that possibly this meant important news. Irene took the letter, and re-entered the room. It was necessary to light the gas before Mrs. Hannaford could read the sheet that trembled in her hand.
"What I feared! He can do nothing."