“You are an angel, and too good to live!” cried Nan, with a gulp. “I blame everybody, and myself worst of all. Prided myself on being sharp-sighted, and couldn’t save you from a blow like this! ... Maud, you don’t want to go home? You would rather not see him this morning? Mother said she would give no definite answer before talking to father, but would let him see Lilias for half an hour, and then pack him off by the midday train. She was going to tell him that under the circumstances she would prefer that he did not stay to lunch, so there would seem nothing strange about it if you and I were not back before he left.”
“No,” agreed Maud softly. She drew her watch from her belt and looked at the hour. “Perhaps you are right, Nan. It would be better not to try my strength too much this morning. In a day or two I shall have gained a little courage, but this morning I—I’ve had rather a shock, and feel weak and nervous. We will sit here and wait until he is gone.”
“Wouldn’t you rather come for a walk? The time seems so long when you are sitting still. A nice brisk walk through the woods!” suggested Nan insinuatingly; but Maud drew back with a quiver of pain.
“No, no! Not this morning! I should remember it always. Every step of the path would bring back this wretched day in the future, and I do so love the woods. Let me keep them free from association, at least. It will be bad enough to dread this road, as I always shall after this.”
“Just as you like, dear, just as you like; but what will you do? You can’t sit still and think all the time!”
“I’ll make up my accounts,” said Maud simply; and, despite her sister’s cry of protest, she insisted on doing as she said. Pencil and note-book came out of her pocket, and one item after another of the morning’s shopping was jotted down, and the result compared with the change in the housekeeping purse.
How could she do it? Nan tried to imagine how she herself would have acted in similar circumstances, and felt her heart beat fast at the possibility. Rage, storm, despair; drown herself in the nearest stream; lie down beneath the express train; bid farewell to the world, and retire into a nunnery. All these alternatives seemed natural and easy; she could imagine taking refuge in any one of them. But to go on with ordinary, everyday work, to take up the “next duty” and perform it in quiet, conscientious fashion—that was impossible!—the last thing in the world that she could bring herself to do.
She did not realise that the bent of a lifetime is not reversed in a moment, and that even the pangs of slighted love must be borne according to the temperament of the sufferer. Dear, placid, domesticated Maud found her best medicine in the “trivial round, the common task.”
Nan, looking over her shoulder, saw that the little rows of figures were as neat and accurate as ever, and caught a sigh of satisfaction when they were added together, and the change in the housekeeping purse was proved correct. Even in the midst of her distress, Maud was conscious of a distinct sense of satisfaction in balancing her accounts to a penny.