“Poor dear! poor dear!” sobbed Miss Heathery, with more tears running slowly down her face, to such an extent that if there had been any one to notice, he or she would have wondered where they all came from, and have then set it down to the tea.
“Sit down, Thisbe,” sighed Mrs Luttrell, “you must be worn out.”
“Poor soul! yes,” said Miss Heathery, and pouring out a fresh cup, she took it to where Thisbe—who had not been to bed for a week, watching, as she had been, by Millicent’s couch—was sitting on the edge of a chair.
“There, drink that, Thisbe,” said Miss Heathery. “You’re a good, good soul!”
As she bent forward and kissed the hard-looking woman’s face, Thisbe stared half wonderingly at her, and took the cup. Then her hard face began to work, she tried to sip a little tea, choked, set down the cup, and hurried sobbing from the room.
For Millicent Hallam, strong in her determination to help her husband, had had to lean on Thisbe’s arm as they returned from Sir Gordon’s house that day. When she reached Miss Heathery’s house she was compelled to lie down on the couch. An hour later she began to talk wildly, and when her father was hastily summoned she was in a high state of fever.
This, with intervals of delirium and calmness, had gone on ever since, up to the day of Robert Hallam’s trial.
On the previous night, as Millicent lay holding her child to her breast—the little thing having been brought at her wish, to bound to the bedside and bury her flushed, half-frightened face in her mother’s bosom—a soft tap had come to the door below.
Millicent’s hearing, during the intervals of the fever and delirium, was preternaturally keen, and she turned to her mother.
“It is Mr Bayle!” she said, in a hoarse whisper. “I know now. I understand all. It is to-morrow. I want to know. Ask him.”