“I should die happily if I might see him.”
“See him!” uttered Joyce, doubting her own ears. “My lady! See him! Mr. Carlyle!”
“What can it signify? I am already as one dead. Should I ask it or wish it, think you, in rude life? The yearning has been upon me for days Joyce; it is keeping death away.”
“It could not be, my lady,” was the decisive answer. “It must not be. It is as a thing impossible.”
Lady Isabel burst into tears. “I can’t die for the trouble,” she wailed. “You keep my children from me. They must not come, you say, lest I should betray myself. Now you would keep my husband. Joyce, Joyce, let me see him!”
Her husband! Poor thing! Joyce was in a maze of distress, though not the less firm. Her eyes were wet with tears; but she believed she should be infringing her allegiance to her mistress did she bring Mr. Carlyle to the presence of his former wife; altogether it might be productive of nothing but confusion.
A knock at the chamber door. Joyce called out, “Come in.” The two maids, Hannah and Sarah, were alone in the habit of coming to the room, and neither of them had ever known Madame Vine as Lady Isabel. Sarah put in her head.
“Master wants you, Miss Joyce.”
“I’ll come.”
“He is in the dining-room. I have just taken down Master Arthur to him.”