She was well enough to do this, and Richard and the Signora were beginning to think of turning homewards; but before they could well leave Paris there was something that ought to be told to Eleanor—something that she must know sooner or later—something that it would be perhaps better for her to know at once.
But they had waited from time to time, thinking that she might ask some question which would lead to the revelation that must ultimately be made to her.
Upon this September afternoon she sat near the open window, looking very beautiful and virginal in a loose white muslin dressing-gown, and with her long auburn curls falling upon her shoulders. She had been silent for a long time: her two companions watching her furtively, observant of every change in her countenance. Her cup of tea stood untasted on a little table at her side, and she was sitting with her hands loosely locked together in her lap.
She spoke at last, and asked that very question which must inevitably lead to the revelation her friends had to make to her.
“You have never told me how papa died,” she said; “his death must have been sudden, I know.”
Eleanor Vane spoke very quietly. She had never before mentioned her dead father with so little outward evidence of emotion. The hands loosely locked together upon her lap stirred with a slightly tremulous motion; the face, turned towards the Signora and Richard Thornton, had a look of fixed intensity; and that was all.
“Papa died suddenly, did he not?” she repeated.
“Yes, my dear, very suddenly.”
“I thought so. But why was he not brought home? Why couldn’t I see——”
She stopped abruptly, and turned her face away towards the open window. She was trembling violently now from head to foot.