"Tell me the truth about your mother," said the Duchess as soon as we got into the hall. "At first I thought her fairly well, but she is feverish, quite feverish now. Have I overtired her?"
"I cannot tell you anything except that she is not strong," I said; "that you have come so seldom to see her, that you have over-excited her now. Oh, I cannot wait, I must go back to her."
"I will come again to-morrow or next day," said the Duchess; "I don't like her appearance at all."
The Duchess went away, and I returned to mother.
"It was nice to see Victoria," said my mother. "She is just the same as ever, not the least changed. She told me about all our old friends."
"You are over-excited," I said, "you ought to stay quiet now."
"On the contrary, I am well and hungry; only I wonder when I shall see her again."
"She said she would come to-morrow or next day," I answered.
In the evening mother certainly seemed by no means worse for the Duchess's visit, and the next day she said to me, "Victoria will certainly call to-morrow." But to-morrow came and the Duchess did not arrive, nor the next day, nor the next, and mother looked rather fagged, and rather sad and disappointed, and at the end of a week or fortnight she ceased to watch anxiously for the sound of wheels in the Square, and said less and less about her dear friend Victoria.
But just then, the thoughts of every one in the house except mother (and the news was carefully kept from her), were full of a great and terrible catastrophe, and even I forgot all about the Duchess, for one of our largest Orient liners had foundered on some sunken rocks not far from Port Adelaide, off the coast of South Australia, and there had been a terrific shipwreck, and almost every one on board was drowned. The vessel was called the Star of Hope. The papers were all full of it, and the news was on every one's lips; but just at first I did not realise how all important, how paralysing this same news was for us. I read the trouble first in Jane's face.