I saw the folly of mamma's irrepressible desire to come here. I thought she was going to faint; I dare say she would have done so, she looked so very ill, but that tears relieved her. They were tears in which grief had but a subordinate share; they were nervous tears, the thunder-shower of the hysteria which had been brewing ever since she had entered the room. I don't know whether she was sorry that she had come. I am sure she would have been better if she had never wished it.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
storm.
few days later, mamma and I were talking in the drawing-room, when the door opened, and papa came in, his umbrella in his hand, and his hat on his head, looking as white as death. He stood for a time without speaking. We were both staring in his face, as dumb as he.
"Droqville's a villain!" he said, suddenly. "They have got that miserable old fool's money—every guinea. I told you how it would be, and now it has all happened!"
"What has happened?" asked mamma, still gazing at him, with a look of terror. I was myself freezing with horror. I never saw despair so near the verge of madness in a human face before as in papa's.