Whether his allotted span of life had indeed run out, or whether his exposure to the weather that unlucky morning helped to shorten it, Lucy never knew. A week or two of uncertain sickness—now a little better, now a little worse, and it became too evident that hope of recovery for Peter Arkell was over. A bowed, broken man in frame and spirit, but comparatively young in years, Peter was passing from the world he had found little else than trouble in. Lucy wrote in haste and distress for her Aunt Mildred, but a telegram was received in reply, announcing the death of Lady Dewsbury. She had died somewhat suddenly, Mildred said, when a letter came by the next morning's post, in which she gave particulars.
It was nearly impossible for her to come away before the funeral: nothing short of imminent danger in her brother's state would bring her. She had for a long while been almost sole mistress of the household; Lady Dewsbury was ever her kind friend and protectress; and she could not reconcile it to her feelings to abandon the house while she lay dead in it, unless her brother's state absolutely demanded that she should. Lucy was to write, or telegraph, as necessity should require.
There was no immediate necessity for her to come, and Lucy wrote accordingly. Lucy stayed on alone with the invalid, shunning as much as was possible the presence of Travice, when he made his frequent visits: that presence which had hitherto been to her as a light from heaven. Mrs. Arkell, paying a ceremonious call of condolence one day, whispered to Lucy that Travice was becoming quite "reconciled," quite "fond" of Barbara Fauntleroy.
On the evening of the day after Lady Dewsbury was interred, Mildred arrived in Westerbury. Lucy did not know she was coming, and no one was at the station to meet her. Leaving her luggage to be sent after her, she made her way to her brother's house on foot: it was but a quarter of an hour's walk, and Mildred felt cramped with sitting in the train.
She trembled as she came in sight of it, the old home of her youth, fearing that its windows might be closed, as those had been in the house just quitted. As she stood before the door, waiting to be admitted, remembrances of her childhood came painfully across her—of her happy girlhood, when those blissful dreams of William Arkell were mingled with every thought of her existence.
"And oh! what did they end in!" she cried, clasping her hands tightly together and speaking aloud in her anguish. "What am I now? Chilled in feeling; worn in heart; old before my time."
A middle-aged woman, with a light in her hand, opened the door. Mildred stepped softly over the threshold.
"How is Mr. Arkell?"
The woman—she was the night nurse—stared at the handsomely attired strange lady, whose deep mourning looked so fresh and new, coming in that unceremonious manner at the night-hour.
"He is very ill, ma'am; nearly as bad as he can be," she replied, dropping a low curtsey. "What did you please to want?"