In the course of that long afternoon Midge had only once ventured into the parlor, and that was in fear and trembling, to ask her young mistress to take a cup of tea and some toast which she brought.
Nathalie had tasted nothing since the day before; and poor Midge, with tears in her fretful eyes, urged it upon her now. The girl looked at her out of a pair of hollow eyes, unnaturally large and bright, in a vague way, as if trying to comprehend what she said; and when she did comprehend, refusing. Midge ventured to urge; and then Nathalie broke out of her rigid, despairing stillness, into passionate impatience.
"Take it away!" she cried, "and leave me alone! Leave me alone, I tell you!"
Midge could do nothing but obey. As she quitted the room with the tray, there came a knock at the front door. She set down the tray and opened it, and the tall form of the young English officer confronted her. Midge had no especial love for Captain Cavendish, as we know; but she was aware her young lady had, and was, for the first time in her life, glad to see him. It was good of him to come, she thought, knowing what had happened; and perhaps his presence might comfort her poor Miss Natty, and restore her to herself.
"Yes," Midge said, in answer to his inquiry; "Miss Marsh was at home, and would see him, she thought. If he would wait one minute she would ascertain."
She returned to the parlor to ask. But Nathalie had already heard his voice, and was sitting up, with a strained white face, and her poor wasted hands pressed hard over her heart. She only made an assenting motion to Midge's question, should she show him in, and a negative one when she spoke of bringing a lamp. Through all her torpor of utter misery, she was dimly conscious of a change in herself; that she was haggard and ghastly, and the beauty which had won him first to her side, utterly gone. That gloomy twilight hour was best befitting the scene so soon to take place; for her prophetic heart told her, as surely as if she had read it in the Book of Fate, that this meeting was to be their last.
Midge admitted him, and closing the door behind him, retired into a distant corner of the hall, and throwing her apron over her head, cried quietly, as she had done all day. She would have given a good deal if the white painted panels of the parlor door had been clear glass, and that she could have seen this man comforting her beloved young lady. Much as she had disliked him, she could have knelt down in her gratitude, and kissed the dust off his feet.
Even in the pale, sickly half-twilight of the dark evening, Captain Cavendish could see the haggard cheeks, the sunken eyes, and the death-like livid pallor of the girl's face, and was shocked to see it. He had expected to find her changed, but not like this; and there was real pity for the moment in his eyes as he bent over her and took her hand. He started to find it cold as ice, and it lay in his passive, and like a bit of marble.
"Nathalie," he said, "my darling! I am sorry; I cannot tell you how sorry I am for you. You have suffered indeed since I saw you last."
She did not speak. She had not looked at him once. Her dilated eyes were fixed on the blackening night-sky.