'Oh ... I don't know! I thought he would come, that was all.'
Mrs. Wylie made no pretence of concealing a somewhat impatient shrug of the shoulders.
'You are in your old room,' she said in a voice devoid of sympathy. 'If you take off your bonnet we will have dinner at once. It will warm us up.'
Brenda conducted her sister to the bedroom assigned to her. They had not spoken yet, but the girl's attitude was distinctly sympathetic in its bearing. Women have a silent way of telling us that their hearts are coming, as it were, towards us. I wonder, my brothers, what some of us would do without that voiceless sympathy—without the gentle glance that penetrates and consoles at one time—without the touch of certain fingers which, though light, is full of sweet heartfelt pleading to be allowed a share of the burden.
Brenda unpinned her sister's veil, and, hovering round, volunteered here and there a quick and deft assistance.
'I wonder,' said the beautiful woman at length, with that touch of helplessness in her tone which would have been better reserved for male ears, 'why I feel like a whipped child. I do not see that I am to blame because Alfred chose to be careless. Of course it was an accident.'
Brenda did not answer at once. Indeed, they were leaving the room when she said in a reassuring tone:
'Undoubtedly it was an accident.'
There was no mistaking the tone. Whatever Mrs. Huston's faults may have been, she never sought undue credit; she never pretended to feel that which had no place in her heart. Her sins were those of omission rather than of commission. Despite Mrs. Wylie's assurance to the contrary, Brenda knew then, and never afterwards doubted, that her sister's love for her husband, if it had ever existed, was dead at the time of his sudden and untimely end.
As things go in these days, we can hardly blame this beautiful woman for having loved, and ceasing to love. It is only in novels of to-day and in records of ancient times that we meet with an enduring love. The fact is, we see too many of our fellow-creatures to be constant to a few. We drift together, and we drift apart again. We vow a little, perhaps, and protest that nothing shall divide; but presently the streams diverge. There is some little obstruction in the bed or pathway; the waters part, and never flow together again. We merrymakers dance here and we dance there; we run down into the country by an evening train; dine, dance, make love, and come to town at an early hour. The next night it is just as likely as not that we go off in some other direction with our dress-clothes in a bag and our hearts conspicuously on our sleeves 'for one night only.'