"Well?" I asked, breathlessly, as she closed the door.
"Nothing, Miss, nothing has happened. Do lie down and rest; you look fit to drop."
"But he is well? What did he say—has nothing happened?"
"Nothing has happened. I only saw him for a moment yesterday. Mrs. Roberts kept me close at marking linen all the rest of the day and evening; and this morning I had only a few moments to speak to him when I went in, for her door was open a crack, and I didn't dare to stay: you look so tired—won't you let me undress you?"
"But how did he seem? what did he say about my being away?"
"Oh!" returned Kitty, rather uneasily, "he asked why the house was so quiet, and whether you'd got back yet: he looks a little pale and badly, but I'm sure that's natural enough. Anybody would get pale and gloomy shut up day after day in that awful room, among all poor Miss Alice's books and pictures and things, all looking so dusty and dismal; it gives me a shudder only to go inside the door."
"But he doesn't know anything about her; you've never told him anything about the room?"
"I didn't mean to, Miss; I had no thought of opening my lips about it; but he made me tell him—he wouldn't be satisfied till I had told him every word I knew about the family troubles. What put it into his head to ask, I think was something he had come across in a French book he had been reading; it was a little note that had marked the place. He held it in his hand as I came in, and he looked so white and strange, I was almost frightened. Oh, so many questions as he put me! so eager as he was! He seemed to look so through and through me with those black eyes of his, I didn't dare to keep back anything I knew. And then he asked me about master; if he had really loved his sister—if he had grieved for her, and tried to find her out, or if he held her memory in contempt—if he tried to forget that she had ever lived, and hated to hear her name."
"You didn't tell him that he did, Kitty?"
"How could I help it, Miss? You would not have had me tell him a lie. I had to tell him how it was. I had to tell him that her name was forbidden here—that no one dared for their lives to breathe a word about those times to the master—that her picture, and all that belonged to her, was put out of sight forever—that her room was shut up and hid as much from the living, as the poor lady was herself in her lonesome grave beyond seas. And he clenched his hand till the blood sprung under his nails, and his very lips were white like the wall; he said so low I could just hear him, 'but he shall not forget!' I am no coward, Miss, but I confess I was right glad when I got outside again."