"The widow, instead of you," interrupted Victor, as he stood with the door knob in his hand. "That's what you mean, and I must say it shows a very proper frame of mind in a bride-elect."
Edith made a gesture for him to leave her, and with a low bow he withdrew, while Edith, alternately shivering with cold and flushed with fever, crept into bed, and fell away to sleep, forgetting, for the time, that there were in the world such things as broken hearts, unwilling brides, and blind husbands old enough to be her father.
* * * * * *
The breakfast dishes were cleared away, all but the exquisite little service brought for Edith's use when she was sick, and which now stood upon the side-board waiting until her long morning slumber should end. Once Mrs. Matson had been to her bedside, hearing from her that her head was aching badly, and that she would sleep longer. This message was carried down to Richard, who entertained his guests as best he could, but did not urge them to make a longer stay.
They were gone now, and Richard was alone. It was a favorable opportunity for telling Victor of his engagement, and summoning the latter to his presence, he bade him sit down, himself hesitating, stammering and blushing like a woman, as he tried to speak of Edith. Victor might have helped him, but he would not, as he sat, rather enjoying his master's confusion, until the latter said, abruptly,
"Victor, how would you like to have a mistress here—a bona fide one, I mean, such as my wife would be?"
"That depends something upon who it was," Victor exclaimed, as if this were the first intimation he had received of it.
"What would you say to Edith?" Richard continued, and Victor replied with well-feigned surprise, "Miss Hastings! You would not ask that little girl to be your wife! Why you are twenty-five years her senior."
"No, no, Victor, only twenty-one," and Richard's voice trembled, for like Edith, he wished to be reassured and upheld even by his inferiors.
He knew Victor disapproved, that he considered it a great sacrifice on Edith's part, but for this he had no intention of giving her up. On the contrary it made him a very little vexed that his valet should presume to question his acts, and he said with more asperity of manner than was usual for him,