It was strange to see what a hold this unhappy affection had taken upon Laura’s shallow nature. This frivolous girl was as impressionable as she was volatile. The blow was more terrible to her than it would have been to a woman of higher and grander nature; but to such a woman the consequences of the blow would be, perhaps, life-long, while it was scarcely likely that Laura would suffer for ever. She did not try to endure the grief that had fallen upon her. She was entirely without pride; and had no more shame in bemoaning her loss of Launcelot Darrell than she would have had fifteen years before in crying over a broken doll. She did not care who knew her sorrows, and would have made a confidante of the servant who waited upon her if Eleanor had not interfered to prevent her.
“I’m very miserable and wretched, Jane,” she said, while the girl was smoothing her pillows and arranging the tumbled bed-clothes, which had been twisted into mere wisps of linen by the perpetual tossings to and fro of the invalid. “I’m the most miserable creature that ever was born, Jane, and I wish that I was dead. I know it’s wicked, but I do. What’s the good of Dr. Featherstone prescribing for me, when I don’t want to be prescribed for? What’s the good of my taking lime-draughts, when I’d much rather die? What’s the use of those horrid opiates, that taste like stale London porter? Opiates won’t give me back Launce——”
She stopped abruptly at this point, checked by a warning look from Eleanor.
“You must not speak of Launcelot Darrell to these people, Laura,” Mrs. Monckton said, when the servant had left the room, “unless you want them to suspect that something strange has happened.”
“But they’ll know it, if my wedding is put off.”
“Your guardian will explain all that, Laura.”
Miss Mason bemoaned her fate even more piteously than before. “It’s hard enough to be miserable,” she cried, “but it’s still worse to be miserable, and not to be allowed to say so.”
“Many people have sorrows to endure that cannot be spoken of,” Eleanor answered, quietly. “I had to bear the sorrow of my father’s death when I dared not speak of it.”
Mrs. Monckton saw very little of her husband during the few days of Laura’s illness. She only saw him, indeed, when he came to the door to make inquiries about his ward; but even in the few brief sentences exchanged by them, she could perceive that his manner was altered towards her. He had been cold and distant for a long time since their marriage; but now his manner had the icy reserve of a man who feels that he has been wronged. Eleanor comprehended this, and was sorry for it; but she had a dull, hopeless feeling that nothing she could do would alter it. The great purpose of her life had failed; and she began to think that nothing but failure could come to any hope of hers.
This feeling separated her completely from her husband. In her ignorance of the suspicions which tortured him, she could of course make no effort to set him right. The girl’s innocence and the man’s pride made a gulf that no power of affection could pass. If Eleanor could have guessed, ever so vaguely, at the cause of her husband’s reserve, a few words from her might have melted the ice: but she had not the faintest notion of the hidden source from which came those bitter waters that had swept away all outward tokens of her husband’s love; and those words remained unspoken. Gilbert Monckton thought that if his wife was not false, she was at least indifferent; and he bowed his head before the gloomy face of his Destiny.