Here prostrate on the couch she was found by Rose and Nance Folgate, who conveyed her out, and locked the door.
This event, by the confusion and anxiety it created, delayed the departure of the Bassets from Laurel Lodge for a week longer.
There were times when Ethel wished that she might die, though she shrank from the idea of being separated from her father and sister, and from not sharing their perilous journey; but her mother's grave under the close-clipped grass looked so calm and peaceful in the sunshine of the old English churchyard, that she almost longed to be laid by her side. However, as some one says, "Grief rivets the chain of our life instead of breaking it." So Ethel did not die; but she fell into a state of languid apathy, which caused her father and sister the most serious apprehension.
There were other times, when dreadful thoughts occurred to Ethel—thoughts that came to her mind unbidden, and that she dared express to none; but she could not help associating the mysterious and terrible calamity which had befallen Morley with the idea of Hawkshaw, his rival.
She remembered the unusual and unnatural pallor of his cheek, and his strange excitement on the eventful night; how he complained of illness; how thirstily he drank of the champagne; and how his hand shook so that the crystal which contained the wine rattled nervously against his teeth.
The thought of his story of the Barranco Secco; of his having too surely associated in California, and elsewhere, with such men as Pedro and Zuares Barraddas; and she remembered many episodes of his Mexican life, which he had incidentally related, and at which, though she and Rose had been wont to laugh at them, she shuddered now, and knew not why!
She perceived, too, that Hawkshaw wore his own ring once more, so Morley Ashton must have formally returned it to him on that fatal evening.
Prior to Morley's final arrangement to accompany them, Ethel had schooled her little heart to bear the separation, consequent on their anticipated sea voyage, and change of home, contemplating it as a sorrow that might have a happy end when brighter fortune smiled upon them all; but now she had lost him by a separation that would endure while life lasted.
The slight tinge of colour which her delicate cheek usually wore faded completely away. Her eyes lost their brilliant and calm expression, her lips their wonted smile, her spirits all their buoyancy.
Mr. Basset, we have said, saw this with alarm, and by every means in his power hastened to break up his household, and leave Acton-Rennel.