Mr. Maltravers had not exaggerated the change in her. It was only too painfully evident. Her manner and bearing had altered since Mildred had seen her last. Physically and mentally her nature seemed to have relaxed and broken down. It was as if the springs that sustained the human machine had snapped. The whole mechanism was out of gear. She who had been so firm of speech and meaning, who had been wont to express herself with a cold and cutting decisiveness, was now feeble and wailing, repeating herself, harping upon the same old string, obviously forgetful of that which had gone before.
Mildred felt that she would be only doing her duty in taking up her abode in the great dull house, and trying to soothe the tedium of decay. She could do very little, perhaps, but the fact of near kindred would be in itself a solace, and for her own part she would have the sense of duty done.
“I will stay with you as long as you will have me, aunt,” she said gently. “Albrecht is below. May I send to the station for my luggage?”
“Of course, and your rooms shall be got ready immediately. The house will be yours before very long, perhaps. It would be strange if you could not make it your home!”
She touched a spring on her book-table, which communicated with the electric-bell, and Franz appeared promptly.
“Tell them to get Mrs. Greswold’s old rooms ready at once, and send Albrecht to the station for the luggage,” ordered Miss Fausset, with something of her old decisiveness. “Louisa is with you, I suppose?” she added to her niece.
“Louisa is at the station, looking after my things. Albrecht leaves me to-day. He has been a good servant, and I think he has had an easy place. I have not been an eager traveller.”
“No; you seem to have taken life at a slow pace. What took you to Nice? It is not a place I should have chosen if I wanted quiet.”
Mildred hesitated for some moments before she replied to this question.
“You know one part of my sorrow, aunt; and I think I might trust you with the whole of that sad story. I went to Nice because it was the place where my husband lived with his first wife—where my unhappy sister died.”