Perhaps he felt that there was a kind of rudeness in this speech, for he added hastily, and with a faint smile,—
"Of course I am not the less honoured by your visit."
He moved a chair forward, the least dilapidated of the three or four which formed his scanty stock, and placed it near the neglected fire, which he tried to revive a little by a judicious use of the poker.
"You expected to see some one else, I think," Adela said; quite unable to hide her wounded feelings.
She had seen the eagerness in his pale face when he came to the door, and the disappointed look with which he had recognised her.
"Scarcely; but I expected to receive news of some one else."
"Some one you are very anxious to hear about, I should imagine, from your manner just now," said Adela, who could not forbear pressing the question a little.
"Yes, Mrs. Branston, some one about whom I am anxious; a relation, in short."
She looked at him with a puzzled air. She had never heard him talk of his relations, had indeed supposed that he stood almost alone in the world; but there was no reason that it should be so, except his silence on the subject. She watched him for some moments in silence, as he stood leaning against the opposite angle of the chimney-piece waiting for her to speak. He was looking very ill, much changed since she had seen him last, haggard and worn, with the air of a man who had not slept properly for many nights. There was an absent far-away look in his eyes: and Adela Branston felt all at once that her presence was nothing to him; that this desperate step which she had taken had no more effect upon him than the commonest event of every-day life; in a word, that he did not love her. A cold deathlike feeling came over her as she thought this. She had set her heart upon this man's love, and had indeed some justification for supposing that it was hers. It seemed to her that life was useless—worse than useless, odious and unendurable—without it.
But even while she was thinking this, with a cold blank misery in her heart, she had to invent some excuse for this unseemly visit.