“Your lord and master is as communicative and confidential as mine, I see,” observed Mrs. Cavendish. “Well, I think we are well off in our husbands, as I tell my dear little tribe about mine on all occasions. And you should have seen how fond they grew of Mr. Morrison, the first day he came among them, and smiled upon them all, so sweetly! I assure you they have asked many times since when he would come again. And you must come too. I promised my little folks that you would. When your poor dear head is better, you must come and spend a long day with me. It is the nicest thing in the world, our living so near, our husbands being connected as they are. If any little panic rises at any time, here we are to comfort one another. And I assure you I am dreadfully nervous, ever since that unfortunate affair at Haleham. Do you know, I absolutely forget about my husband having let his whiskers grow; and I have screamed three times this week when he has come in between light and dark, taking him for some stranger. I have a horror of strangers now; ever since——”
She could not help perceiving Hester’s countenance of misery while she was saying this so she interrupted herself.
“There now! I have been barbarous enough to make your head ache with my nonsense. Now positively I will hold my tongue; but it is such a luxury to get an hour with an intimate friend, away from my little tribe!”
Edgar disappeared with his guests, at the end of an evening which Hester thought never would come to a close. On his return, some hours after, he found her, not asleep, nor even in bed, but leaning over the arm of the sofa, from which hung the locket farmer Williams had given her on the day preceding her marriage,—and weeping bitterly. She tried to speak first, but could not for sobs.
“Why, my poor little woman,” said Edgar, after a glance round which quieted his fear that intruders had been there—“my poor little woman! we have quite tired you out to-day; but you should have gone to bed; you should——”
“I could not go,” said Hester. “I would not till I had spoken to you, Edgar. I have something that I must say to you.”
“Well, well, love; in the morning. It is very late now; and, look ye, the last candle is just burnt out. What could make you wait for me, child, when you know the people overhead were on the watch to let me in? I must make haste and help them. It is a busy night.”
“O, no, no. You must stay and hear me,” cried Hester, struggling for speech. “I must say it now. Indeed I must.”
“Aye; you are going to say what a much better husband that son of Williams’s would have made. I know what that locket means, very well. If he had been alive, I should tell you that you ought to have known your own mind when you married me. Since he’s dead, there is no more to be said, except that I do wish you would chirp up a little, and not let everybody see that there is something the matter. Do you know, I will not answer for the consequences?”
“Nor I, I am sure,” murmured Hester. “I had better go, Edgar; and that is what I was going to say. I have been joining in your plots all this time for your sake. I could not have borne it so long for anybody else. I could go on still, I think, if it was with you alone; but I never promised to have anything to do with—with——”