Another two months went by, and there came a letter—re-addressed, like the other communications, at the post office—in which the baronet’s wife declared herself anxious to hear of her friends. She found they had left Herne Hill; if this letter reached him, would not Edmund come and see her at her house in Wimpole Street?
Misery of solitude, desire for a woman’s sympathy and counsel, impelled him to use this opportunity, little as it seemed to promise. He went to Wimpole Street and had a very long private talk with Lady Horrocks, who, in some way he could not understand, had changed from her old self. She began frivolously, but in rather a dull, make-believe way; and when she heard that Widdowson had parted from his wife, when a few vague, miserable words had suggested the domestic drama so familiar to her observation, she at once grew quiet, sober, sympathetic, as if really glad to have something serious to talk about.
“Now look here, Edmund. Tell the whole story from the first. You’re the sort of man to make awful blunders in such a case as this. Just tell me all about it. I’m not a bad sort, you know, and I have troubles of my own—I don’t mind telling you so much. Women make fools of themselves—well, never mind. Just tell me about the little girl, and see if we can’t square things somehow.”
He had a struggle with himself, but at length narrated everything, often interrupted by shrewd questions.
“No one writes to you?” the listener finally inquired.
“I am expecting to hear from them,” was Widdowson’s answer, as he sat in the usual position, head hanging forward and hands clasped between his knees.
“To hear what?”
“I think I shall be sent for.”
“Sent for? To make it up?”
“She is going to give birth to a child.”