"It was my house once," said Adela, in agitation.
"But it is yours no longer. Pray consider. Of all people in the world, you must not attempt to enter it. It would be unseemly."
Adela burst into tears. "If you knew—if you knew how I long for a sight of it, Gracie," she gasped, "you would not deny me. Only just one little look at it, Grace! What can it matter? He is not there."
How Grace would have contrived to combat this wish, cannot be told: but Lady Acorn came in. In answer to her questioning as to what Adela was crying about now, Grace thought it well to tell her.
"Oh," said the countess, receiving the affair lightly, for she did not suppose Adela could be serious. "Go there, would you! What would the world say, I wonder, if they met Lady Adela Netherleigh at that house? Don't be silly, child."
What indeed! Adela sighed and said no more. Yet, she did so want to go. Lying back in her chair, her thoughts busy with the past and present, the longing took a terrible hold upon her.
She dressed, but did not go down to dinner, refusing that meal as she had refused luncheon. Lady Acorn went straight from the dinner-table to Grosvenor Square, calling on her way at Colonel Hope's for her daughter Frances, as had been arranged. Grace, who did not care to leave Adela alone for too long an evening, would go later with Sir Sandy. She hastened to dress, not having done so before dinner, and then went to her sister's room to remain with her to the last moment.
But when Grace got there, she found, to her dismay, that Adela was prepared to go also. Her fan lay on the table, her gloves beside it.
"Adela, indeed you must not go!" decisively spoke Grace. "Only think how—I said it this afternoon—unseemly it will be."
"If you only knew how I am yearning for it," came the piteous reiteration, and Adela entwined her wasted arms entreatingly about her sister. "My own home once, Gracie, my own home once! I seem to be dying for a sight of it."