Miss Fausset started up, flushed with surprise, at Mildred’s entrance. Her niece had kept her acquainted with her movements, but had told her nothing of the drama of her existence since she left Brighton.
“My dear child, I am very glad to see you back,” she said gently. “You are come to stay with me for a little while, I hope, before—”
She hesitated, and looked at Mildred earnestly.
“Are you reconciled to your husband?” she asked abruptly, as if with irrepressible anxiety.
“Reconciled?” echoed Mildred; “we have never quarrelled. He is as dear to me to-day as he was the day I married him—dearer for all the years we spent together. But we are parted for ever. You know that it must be so, and you know why.”
“I hoped that time would have taught you common sense.”
“Time has only confirmed my resolution. Do not let us argue the point, aunt. I know that you mean kindly, but I know that you are false to your own principles—to all the teaching of your life—when you argue on the side of wrong.”
Miss Fausset turned her head aside impatiently. She had sunk back into her chair after greeting Mildred, and her niece perceived that she, who used to sit erect as a dart, in the most uncompromising attitude, was now propped up with cushions, against which her wasted figure leaned heavily.
“How have you got through the winter, aunt?” Mildred asked presently.
“Not very well. It has tried me more than any other winter I can remember. It has been a long weary winter. I have been obliged to give up the greater part of my district work. I held on as long as ever I could, till my strength failed me. And now I have to trust the work to others. I have my lieutenants—Emily Newton and her sister—who work for me. You remember them, perhaps. Earnest good girls. They keep me en rapport with my poor people; but it is not like personal intercourse. I begin to feel what it is to be useless—to cumber the ground.”