“Is she so badly hurt, that she will not be able to come home with the body?” she asked, and Mrs. Churchill started as if she had been stung.
“Come home! Come here! That girl! I’d never thought of that,” she exclaimed; and then Maude knew just how “that girl” was regarded by her husband’s mother.
She did not know how Roy felt; but she went to him next and asked if it was not expected that Charlie’s wife would come to Leighton if she was able to travel, and Georgie’s telegram “slightly injured” would indicate that she was. Although he knew it to be a fact, still Charlie’s wife was rather mythical to Roy, and he had thought but little about her, certainly never that she was coming there, until Maude’s question showed him the propriety of the thing.
“Of course she will come,” he said. “I wonder if mother sent any message by Russell. Ask her, please.”
Mrs. Churchill had sent no message. She did not think it necessary; the girl would do as she liked, of course.
“Then she will come; I should,” Maude said; and next morning, as she combed and brushed Mrs. Churchill’s hair, she casually asked:
“Which room is to be given to Charlie’s wife?
“I thought, perhaps, she would prefer the one he used to occupy in the north wing,” she added, “and if you like I will see that it is in readiness for the poor girl. How I pity her, a widow in less than twenty-four hours. And such a pretty name too,—Edna. Don’t you think it is pretty?”
“Oh, child, don’t ask me. I want to do right, but I don’t like to hear of her. It seems as if she was the means of Charlie’s death,” Mrs. Churchill sobbed, and Maude’s soft hands moved caressingly over the grayish-brown hair as she spoke again for the poor girl lying stunned, and scared, and white, so many miles away.
“Charlie must have loved her very much,” she said, “or he would never have braved your displeasure, and that of Roy. She may be a comfort to you, who have no other daughter. I begin to feel a great interest in her, and mean to be her friend.”