“If,” said Mabel, trembling a good deal—“if afterwards you could come back—”
Annie’s heart bounded.
“I can’t talk of it,” she said; “don’t speak of it now. When the time comes, if you—were—to write I will write to you, that is, if I have strength to write to any one. You have my address. You know how deeply I shall always love you. You know there is no good turn I would not do for you.”
“I want you to help me until Priscilla’s year at school is out,” was Mabel’s matter-of-fact retort. “Of course, dear, of course; and I will. Your Annie will never forsake you. But now perhaps we had better go downstairs.”
The girls made a quite picturesque appearance as they went slowly down the broad staircase. Mabel had not cried enough to look ugly, and Annie’s few tears and pallor and evident distress gave to her face the depth of expression which in her lighter moments it had lacked.
John Saxon was seated close to Lady Lushington. Lady Lushington had recognised him as a friend and a favourite. He rose when the girls appeared, and Lady Lushington went at once up to Annie.
Her manner was very cold and distant. “You did not give me the slightest idea, Miss Brooke, how ill your uncle was when you received your cousin’s letter.”
“I didn’t know that he was especially ill,” said Annie.
Lady Lushington looked full at her. It seemed at that moment that a veil had fallen away from Annie’s face, and that the gay, proud, and selfish woman of the world saw the girl for the first time as she was.
Lady Lushington, with all her faults—the faults of her class and her manner of life—was exceedingly good-natured, and could be remarkably kind. She was thoroughly angry with Annie for concealing the truth with regard to John Saxon’s letter. She could, and would, forgive much to any young girl who was enjoying herself and who wanted to continue the good time which had fallen to her lot; but to forget one who stood in the place of a father, to let him long for her in vain, was more than Lady Lushington could stand.