“What?” asked Barbara.
“Madame Vine has been crying ever since. Why should she?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Crying!”
“Yes but she wipes her eyes under her spectacles, and thinks I don’t see her. I know I am very ill, but why should she cry for that?”
“Nonsense, William. Who told you you were very ill?”
“Nobody. I suppose I am,” he thoughtfully added. “If Joyce or Lucy cried, now, there’d be some sense in it, for they have known me all my life.”
“You are so apt to fancy things! You are always doing it. It is not likely that madame would be crying because you are ill.”
Madame came in with the bank-note. Barbara thanked her, ran upstairs, and in another minute or two was in her carriage.
She was back again, and dressing when the gentlemen returned to dinner. Mr. Carlyle came upstairs. Barbara, like most persons who do things without reflection, having had time to cool down from her ardor, was doubting whether she had acted wisely in sending so precipitately for Richard. She carried her doubt and care to her husband, her sure refuge in perplexity.
“Archibald, I fear I have done a foolish thing.”