“Miss Potts and Mr. Despard.”
“Are they both here?”
“Yes.”
Brandon was silent.
“I will go and tell them that you are here,” said Mrs. Compton.
Brandon made no reply, and Mrs. Compton, taking silence for assent, went to announce his arrival.
In a short time they appeared. Beatrice entered first. She was grave, and cold, and solemn; Despard was gloomy and stern. They both shook hands with Brandon in silence. Beatrice gave her hand without a word, lifelessly and coldly; Despard took his hand abstractedly.
Brandon looked earnestly at Beatrice as she stood there before him, calm, sad, passionless, almost repellent in her demeanor, and wondered what the cause might be of such a change.
Mrs. Compton stood apart at a little distance, near Philips, and looked on with a strange expression, half wistful, half timid.
There was a silence which at length became embarrassing. From the room where they were sitting the inn could plainly be seen, with the crowd outside. Beatrice’s eyes were directed toward this. Despard said not a word. At another time he might have been strongly interested in this man, who on so many accounts was so closely connected with him; but now the power of some dominant and all-engrossing idea possessed him, and he seemed to take no notice of any things whatever either without the house or within.