She wondered sometimes whether any one ever died of repentance and regret. Existence was becoming all but unendurable. When she opened her weary eyelids to the dawn of a new day she would moan out a faint prayer that God in His compassion would help her to get through it, and would bury her face in the pillow, wishing she could so bury herself and her misery.
It must not be thought she was encouraged in this state of mind. Lady Harriet MacIvor had become intolerably cross about it long ago, openly telling Adela she had no patience with her. From her Adela received no sympathy whatever. Look where she would, not a gleam of brightness shone for her. Sick at heart, fainting in spirit, it seemed to Adela that any change would be welcome; and when Sir Sandy received a letter one morning, telling him his presence was needed in London, and he announced his intention of starting that same day, Adela said she should go with him.
Lady Harriet did not oppose it. In truth, it brought her relief. Adela was becoming more of a responsibility day by day; and she had held some anxious conferences with her husband as to the expediency of their resigning charge of her.
"It is the best thing that could have happened, Sandy," she said to him in private. "Take her over to mamma, and tell her everything. I think they had better keep her themselves for a time."
Hence the unexpected irruption of the travellers at Chenevix House. Lady Acorn was not pleased. Not that she was sorry to see Adela once more; but she had lived in a chronic state of anger with her since the separation, and the accounts written to her from time to time by her daughter Harriet in no way diminished it.
After the briefest interview with her mother, Adela escaped to the chamber assigned her; the one she used to occupy. This left Sir Sandy free to open the budget his wife had charged him with, and to say that for the present he and Harriet would rather not continue to have the responsibility of Adela. Lady Acorn, as she listened, audibly wished Adela was a child again, that she might "have the nonsense shaken out of her."
Lady Sarah Hope raised her condemnatory shoulders, as her mother related this. She had never had the slightest sympathy with the trouble Adela had brought upon herself, or with the remorse it entailed.
"Will you see her, Sarah?" asked Lady Acorn.
"No; I would rather not. At least, not today. I must be going shortly."
Poor Adela! True, she had been guilty of grievous offences, but they had brought their punishment. As we sow, so do we generally reap. This return to her mother's home seemed to bring back all the past sin, all the present anguish, in colours tenfold more vivid.