Her arms were on the window-sill—her face fell upon them. One hour, two, three passed; she never moved. She was not crying, she was suffering, but dully, with a numb, torpid, miserable sense of pain. All her life since that rainy spring day, when Charley Stuart had come to Sandypoint with his mother's letter, returned to her. She had striven and coquetted to bring about the result she wanted—it had seemed such a dazzling thing to be a baronet's wife, with an income that would flow in to her like a ceaseless golden river. She had jilted the man she loved in cold bloody and accepted the man to whom her heart was as stone. In the hour when fortune was deserting her best friends, she had deserted them too. And the end was—this.
It was close upon twelve when Emily, the maid, sleepy and cross, tapped at the door. She had to tap many times before her mistress heard her. When she did hear and open, and the girl came in, she recoiled from the ghastly pallor of her lady's face.
"I shall not want you to-night," Edith said briefly. "You may go to bed."
"But you are ill, my lady. If you only saw yourself! Can't I fetch you something? A glass of wine from the dining-room?"
"Nothing, Emily, thank you. I have sat up too long in the night air—that is all. Go to bed; I shall do very well."
The girl went, full of pity and worries, shaking her head. "Only this morning I thought what a fine thing it was to be the bride of so fine a gentleman, and look at her now."
Left alone, she closed and fastened the window herself. An unsupportable sense of pain and weariness oppressed her. She did not undress. She loosened her clothes, wrapped a heavy, soft railway rug about her, and lay down upon the bed. In five minutes the tired eyes had closed. There is no surer narcotic than trouble sometimes; hers was forgotten—deeply, dreamlessly, she slept until morning.
The sun was high in the sky when she awoke. She raised herself upon her elbow and looked around, bewildered. In a second yesterday flashed upon her, and her journey of to-day. She arose, made her morning toilet, and rang for her maid. Breakfast was waiting—it was past nine o'clock, and she could leave Carnarvon in three quarters of an hour. She made an effort to eat and drink; but it was little better than an effort. She gave Jamison his parting instructions—he was to remain here until to-morrow; by that time orders would come from Powyss Place. Then, in the dress she had travelled in yesterday, she entered the railway carriage and started upon her return journey.
How speedily her honeymoon had ended! A curious sort of smile passed over her face as she thought it. She had not anticipated Elysium—quite—but she certainly had anticipated something very different from this.
She kept back thought resolutely—she would not think—she sat and looked at the genial October landscape flitting by. Sooner or later the floodgates would open, but not yet.