“Your health, Mr Van Heldre,” he said solemnly. “Best thing I can wish you. Yours, Mrs Van Heldre, and may you never be a widow. Miss Madelaine, your health, my dear, and may your eyes be opened. I’m not such a bad man as you think.”
He drank the glass of wine, and then made a grimace.
“Sweet biscuits,” he said, “only fit for children. Hah, well! Eh? What’s the matter?”
He had heard a cry, and hurrying across the office, he locked the door, and ran down the glass corridor to the house.
“Worse, ma’am, worse?” he cried, as Mrs Van Heldre came running down the stairs and into the dining-room, where she plumped herself on the floor, and held her hands to her lips to keep back the hysterical sobs which struggled for vent.
“Shall I run for the doctor, ma’am?”
“No, no!” cried Mrs Van Heldre, in a stifled voice, with her mouth still covered. “Better.”
“Better?”
She nodded violently.
“Then it was very cruel of you, ma’am,” said the old man, plaintively. “I thought—I thought—”