"Aurora!" exclaimed Lucy, starting from her seat and dropping the fairy implements of her work in a little shower upon the carpet; "Aurora! It can't be, surely? Why, Talbot, she only went back to Yorkshire a few days ago."
"Mr. and Mrs. Mellish are both below, I suppose?" Mr. Bulstrode said to the servant.
"No, sir; Mrs. Mellish came alone in a cab from the station, I believe. Mrs. Mellish is in the library, sir. I asked her to walk upstairs; but she requested to see you alone, sir, if you please."
"I'll come directly," answered Talbot. "Tell Mrs. Mellish I will be with her immediately."
The door closed upon the servant, and Lucy ran towards it, eager to hurry to her cousin.
"Poor Aurora!" she said; "there must be something wrong, surely. Uncle Archibald has been taken ill, perhaps; he was not looking well when we left Felden. I'll go to her, Talbot; I'm sure she'd like to see me first."
"No, Lucy; no," answered Mr. Bulstrode, laying his hand upon the door, and standing between it and his wife; "I had rather you didn't see your cousin until I have seen her. It will be better for me to see her first." His face was very grave, and his manner almost stern as he said this. Lucy shrank from him as if he had wounded her. She understood him, very vaguely, it is true; but she understood that he had some doubt or suspicion of her cousin, and for the first time in his life Mr. Bulstrode saw an angry light kindled in his wife's blue eyes.
"Why should you prevent my seeing Aurora?" Lucy asked; "she is the best and dearest girl in the world. Why shouldn't I see her?"
Talbot Bulstrode stared in blank amazement at his mutinous wife.
"Be reasonable, my dear Lucy," he answered very mildly; "I hope always to be able to respect your cousin—as much as I respect you. But if Mrs. Mellish leaves her husband in Yorkshire, and comes to London without his permission,—for he would never permit her to come alone,—she must explain to me why she does so before I can suffer my wife to receive her."