"It's no the old thing," Elsa added suddenly, lowering her voice.
Miss Esperance put out her hand as if warding off a blow. "Of course not," she exclaimed. "I am surprised, Elsa, that you should so far forget yourself as to refer, to—that time—so long ago, so entirely passed."
The little lady seemed in some subtle fashion to withdraw herself to an immense distance from the homely serving-woman who stood fingering her apron and saying nothing. She knew that she had offended her mistress, and when Miss Esperance was offended, she, usually the gentlest and friendliest of women, became quite unapproachable. She left the room with her usual noiseless tread, and for a good five minutes after she had gone Elsa stood where she was, still fingering her apron and wondering what she could do to make amends.
Mr. Wycherly sat at his knee-hole table far into the night. From the recesses of a drawer that had been locked for years he brought forth papers; long, legal-looking papers, and set himself, for the first time since he came to live with Miss Esperance, to look into his financial position. He made many notes and his brow was furrowed by care and thought, for his brain lent itself with difficulty to the understanding of figures. Still he persevered, and gradually his expression became less pained and perplexed. For once he did not leave his papers scattered all over the table. He arranged them neatly in bundles and put them back again into the drawer and locked it.
When he had finished these unusually orderly arrangements, he pulled up the blind of Montagu's window and looked out toward Arthur's Seat. It was a moonlight night, and something of the large peace of that majestic hill seemed to pass into his soul, for his gentle, scholarly face was no longer troubled, and he whispered as if in prayer: "Thank God, I can at least do that for her. Thank God!"
The tender moonbeams touched Mr. Wycherly's hair, white since he was seven and twenty, to purest silver, and there seemed a benediction in that quiet hour for the little house that held so much of innocence and sorrow and repentance.
CHAPTER VII
ELSA DRIVES THE NAIL HOME
And toward such a full or complete life, a life of various yet select sensation, the most direct and effective auxiliary must be, in a word, Insight.—MARIUS THE EPICUREAN.
When Elsa came to clear away Mr. Wycherly's breakfast next morning she shut the door carefully behind her and stumped—never had woman a heavier foot than Elsa—across to his writing-table, where she stood facing him in silence.