“The love of these is like the lightning spear,
And shrivels whom it touches. They consume
All things within their reach, and, last of all,
Their lonely selves.”
The cottage was to be let. A board offering it upon a repairing lease announced the fact.
Lord Cheriton opened the familiar gate. The very sound with which it swung back as he passed recalled a life that was gone, that had left nothing but an exceeding bitter sorrow. How weedy and dejected the narrow garden looked in the sunshine—how moss-grown the gravel path which he and Evelyn had once taken such pains to weed and roll, in those early days when that modest suburban retreat seemed a happy home, and the demon of ennui had not yet darkened their threshold.
He entered the well-remembered porch over which the Virginia creeper hung in rank luxuriance. The house was not unoccupied, for slipshod feet came along the passage at the sound of the bell, and he heard children’s voices in the back premises.
A slatternly woman, with a year-old baby on her left arm, opened the door.
“Has a lady called here this morning?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, there is a lady here now—in the drawing-room,” the woman answered eagerly. “I hope you belong to her, for I’ve been feeling a bit nervous about her, with me and the children alone in the house, and my husband not coming back till night time. I’m afraid she’s not quite right in her head.”