Hemming showed him into the study. It surprised him vaguely to find the house as untidy and dingy as usual—the abode of a woman-hating bachelor, untouched by the coming of a fair young mistress. Certainly the affair had been very sudden.
Gaunt joined him almost at once, his own appearance just as normal and unchanged as that of his house.
"I must begin with hearty congratulations," observed the doctor, shaking hands cordially. "Ferris, it appears, caught a glimpse of Mrs. Gaunt yesterday, and he says she is perfectly lovely."
"Thanks. Yes, my wife is certainly pretty, but I fear she is not very strong. As I think I hinted to you in my note, she was bitten with the idea which infects many girls nowadays—this notion of taking up Work, with a capital W. She has been scrubbing floors and cooking meals—laying tables and lighting fires. It has been quite too much for her. She told me nothing of it, and I was inconsiderate enough to take her a long ramble over the estate yesterday. She was so done up afterwards that I persuaded her to stay in bed to-day until you had seen her."
It was frankly and quite pleasantly said. The doctor applauded the new-made husband's care, and was taken upstairs, under Grover's escort, to the room where his patient lay.
He was not a man observant of details, but it struck even him that these were curious surroundings for a modern bride.
Since his inheritance of the property from his great aunt, the survivor of four aged sisters, Gaunt had not thought of touching or altering anything.
The big bedstead on which Virginia lay was what used to be known as a "tester." It had a wooden canopy, and hangings of washed-out chintz.
There was an early Victorian mahogany wardrobe, big, heavy, ugly, and commodious. The rest of the furniture was in keeping. However, plenty of sunshine came in through the long windows, and there was a bunch of roses on a small table near the bed.
With her hair tumbling about her, Mrs. Gaunt looked like a child. He had a moment's horror as he met the nervous, shrinking dread in her lovely eyes. Was this a tragedy?