CHAPTER XV.
'THEY SHALL PASS, AND THEIR PLACES BE TAKEN?'
The letter which told Miss Bellingham that her lover was master of Penwyn seemed to her almost like the end of a fairy tale. Lady Cheshunt had dropped in to afternoon tea only a quarter of an hour before the letter arrived, and Madge was busy with the old Battersea cups and saucers, and the quaint little Wedgwood teapot, when the accomplished serving man, who never abated one iota of his professional solemnity because his wages were doubtful, presented Churchill's letter on an antique salver.
'Put it on the table, please,' said Madge, busy with the tea-service, and painfully conscious that the dowager's eye was upon her. She had recognised Churchill's hand at a glance, and thought how daring, nay, even impudent it was of him to write to her. It was mean of him to take such advantage of her weakness that Sunday morning, she thought. True, that in one fatal moment she had let him discover the secret she was most anxious to hide; but she had given him no right over her. She had made him no promise. Her love had been admitted hypothetically. 'If we lived in a different world. If I had myself only to consider,' she had said to him; which meant that she would have nothing to do with him under existing circumstances.
She glanced at Viola, that fragile Sèvres china beauty, with her air of being unfitted for the vulgar uses of life.
'Poor child! For her sake I ought to marry Mr. Balecroft, that pompous Manchester merchant; or that vapid young fop, Sir Henry Featherstone,' she thought, with a sigh.
'Read your letter, my dear love,' said Lady Cheshunt, leaning over the tray to put an extra lump of sugar into her cup, and scrutinizing the address of that epistle which had brought the warm crimson blood to Madge Bellingham's cheeks and brow. The good-natured dowager permitted herself this breach of good breeding, in the warmth of her affection for Madge. The handwriting was masculine, evidently. That was all Lady Cheshunt could discover.
Miss Bellingham broke the seal, trying to look composed and indifferent, but after hurriedly reading Churchill's brief letter, gave a little cry of horror.
'Good heavens! it is too dreadful!' she exclaimed.
'What is too dreadful, child?'
'You remember what we were talking about last Saturday night, when you took so much trouble to warn me against allowing myself to—to entangle myself—I think that's what you called it—with Mr. Penwyn.'