“Yes; there was more sentiment in his nature than any one would suppose from seeing him. He was very fond of me at times.”
Just then Pierre came in bringing candles and a tray with his mistress’ supper upon it, and the conversation was brought to a close, nor was it resumed again, for after tea Margery came up and sat with Reinette and her mother until the latter asked to be excused, and retired to her room.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
TINA.
Reinette kept saying the name over to herself after Margery left her, and when at last she was in bed it repeated itself again and again in her brain, while a horrible suspicion, the exact nature of which she could not define, was forcing itself into her mind. To sleep was impossible, and with all her old wakefulness upon her, she tossed restlessly from side to side until she heard the clock strike one.
“I cannot lie here,” she said, and putting on her dressing-gown she drew her chair to the grate where the fire which Pierre had replenished just before she retired was burning, and with her face buried in her hands, began to think such thoughts as made the drops of perspiration stand thickly upon her forehead and about her lips.
“Who was the Tina who wrote to my father?” she asked herself.
Not Christine; that would be too horrible. Christine had been her mother’s maid, and it was not like a proud man like Frederick Hetherton to think of such as she. There were other Tinas in the world. The writer of the letter was some bright-eyed, bright-faced girl of humble origin, who had caught her father’s fancy for a few days and been flattered by a kind word from him, and possibly, he was for the moment more interested in her than he ought to have been. That was all; and she was foolish to be so disquieted.
Thus Queenie reasoned, or tried to, but all the time a terrible fear was tugging at her heart, and she was living over again that dreadful death scene on the ship when her father made her swear to forgive him whatever might come to her knowledge. She had thought at first that he meant her American relations, of whom he had never told her, and she had forgiven that long ago. Then came the mystery concerning Christine and her concealment of her identity, but Reinette had recovered from that and still there was a nameless terror at her heart, as she sat alone in her room while the clock struck the hours two and three, and the fire in the grate grew lower, and the winter night seemed to grow thicker and colder around her.
At last, when she could keep still no longer, she arose, and pacing the room hurriedly, beat the air with her hands, as she was wont to do under great excitement.