Valentine and her little son came back to the house in town at the end of October. Lilias came with them, and Adrian Carr often ran up to town and paid a visit to the two.
One day he came with a piece of news. He had got the offer of an incumbency not very far from Park-Lane. A fashionable church wanted a good preacher. Carr had long ago developed unusual powers as a pulpit orator, and the post, with a good emolument, was offered to him. He came to consult Lilias and Valentine in the matter.
"Of course you must go," said Lilias. "My father will miss you—we shall all—but that isn't the point. This is a good thing for you—a great thing—you must certainly go."
"And I can often see you," responded Carr, eagerly. "Mrs. Wyndham will let me come here, I hope, and you will often be here."
"I wish you would spend the winter with me, Lilias," said Valentine. She had interpreted aright the expression in Carr's eyes, and soon afterwards she left the room.
She went up to her own room, shut and locked the door, and then stood gazing into the fire with her hands tightly locked together. She inherited one gift from her father. She, too, could wear a mask. Now it dropped from her, and her young face looked lined and old.
"It isn't the grief of losing him," she murmured under her breath. "It's the pain—the haunting fear—that things are wrong. Have I known my father all these years not to note the change in him? He shrinks from me—he dreads me. Why? His conscience is guilty. Oh, Gerald, if I had only let you look into my heart, perhaps you would not have gone away. Oh, if only I had been in time to go on board the Esperance you would have been living now. Yes, Gerald, the terror never leaves me day and night; you are dead, but God did not mean you to die. My own Gerald—my heart would have been broken, or I should have lost my reason, if I had not confided my fears to Mr. Carr. Some people perhaps think I have forgotten—some again that I have ceased to love my husband. How little they know! Of course I am bright outwardly. But my heart is old and broken. I have had a very sad life—I am a very unhappy woman. Only for little Gerry I couldn't live. He is sweet, but I wish he were more like his father. Ah, there is nurse's knock at the door. Coming, nurse. Is baby with you?"
Mrs. Wyndham unlocked her door, and a little round, dimpled, brown-tinted child scampered in. He was followed by his nurse, a grave, nice-looking woman of about thirty. She was a widow, and had a son of her own.
"Has baby come to say good-night, Annette? Come here, sweet. Come into mother's arms."
She sat down on a low chair by the fire, and the little man climbed on her knee.