Maulevrier, the restless, was off to Argyleshire for the grouse shooting as soon as he had deposited Lady Lesbia comfortably at Fellside.
'I should only be in your way if I stopped,' he said, 'for you and Molly have hardly got over the honeymoon stage yet, though you put on the airs of Darby and Joan. I shall be back in a week or ten days.'
'In Lady Maulevrier's state of health I don't think you ought to stay away very long,' said Hartfield.
'Poor Lady Maulevrier! She never cared much for me, don't you know. But I suppose it would seem unkind if I were to be out of the way when the end comes. The end! Good heavens! how coolly I talk of it; and a year ago I thought she was as immortal as Fairfield yonder.'
He went away, his spirits dashed by that awful thought of death, and Lord and Lady Hartfield had the house to themselves, since Lesbia hardly counted. She seldom left her own rooms, except to sit with her grandmother for an hour. She lay on her sofa—or sat in a low arm-chair by the window, reading Keats or Shelley—or only dreaming—dreaming over the brief golden time of her life, with its fond delusions, its false brightness. Mr. Horton went to see her every day—felt the feeble little pulse which seemed hardly to have force enough to beat—urged her to struggle against apathy and inertia, to walk a little, to go for a long drive every day, to live in the open air—to which instructions she paid not the slightest attention. The desire for life was gone. Disappointed in her ambition, betrayed in her love, humiliated, duped, degraded—a social failure. What had she to live for? She felt as if it would have been a good thing, quite the best thing that could happen, if she could turn her face to the wall and die. All that past season, its triumphs, its pleasures, its varieties, was like a garish dream, a horror to look back upon, hateful to remember.
In vain did Mary and Hartfield urge Lesbia to join in their simple pleasures, their walks and rides and drives, and boating excursions. She always refused.
'You know I never cared much for roaming about these everlasting hills,' she told Mary. 'I never had your passion for Lakeland. It is very good of you to wish to have me, but it is quite impossible. I have hardly strength enough for a little walk in the garden.'
'You would have more strength if you went out more,' pleaded Mary, almost with tears. 'Mr. Horton says sun and wind are the best doctors for you. Lesbia, you frighten me sometimes. You are just letting yourself fade away.'
'If you knew how I hate the world and the sky, Mary, you wouldn't urge me to go out of doors,' Lesbia answered, moodily. 'Indoors I can read, and get away from my own thoughts somehow, for a little while. But out yonder, face to face with the hills and the lake—the scenes I have known all my life—I feel a heart-sickness that is worse than death. It maddens me to see that old, old picture of mountain and water, the same for ever and ever, no matter what hearts are breaking.'
Mary crept close beside her sister's couch, put her arm round her neck, laid her cheek—rich in the ruddy bloom of health—against Lesbia's pallid and sunken cheek, and comforted her as much as she could with tender murmurs and loving kisses. Other comfort, she could give none. All the wisdom in the world will not cure a girl's heart-sickness when she has flung away the treasures of her love upon a worthless object.