She clasped her hands as she spoke, in the intensity of her emotion. She almost forgot, as they stood there together talking of the welfare of the child, their child, that he was no longer her husband. Almost, not quite, utterly impossible would it be for her wholly to forget the dreadful present. Neither he nor the child could again belong to her in this world.
A strange rising of the throat in her wild despair, a meek courtesy, as she turned from him, his last words ringing in her ears: “I shall call in further advice for him, Madame Vine.”
William was clinging round Mrs. Carlyle, in a coaxing attitude, when she re-entered the gray parlor. “I know what I could eat, mamma, if you’d let me have it,” cried he, in answer to her remonstrance that he must eat something.
“What could you eat?”
“Some cheese.”
“Cheese! Cheese with tea!” laughed Mrs. Carlyle.
“For the last week or two he has fancied strange things, the effect of a diseased appetite,” exclaimed Madame Vine; “but if I allow them to be brought in he barely tastes them.”
“I am sure, mamma, I could eat some cheese now,” said William.
“You may have it,” answered Mrs. Carlyle.
As she turned to leave the room, the impatient knock and ring of a visitor was heard. Barbara wondered who could be arriving at that, their dinner hour. Sailing majestically into the hall, her lips compressed, her aspect threatening, came Miss Carlyle.