The deceitful improvement in the state of Adeline de Castella still continued. Herself alone (and perhaps the medical faculty) saw it for what it was--a temporary flickering up of the life-flame before going out. Now and then she would drop a word which betrayed her own convictions, and they did not like to hear it.
Rose had put on her mourning, as slight as was consistent with any sort of decency; but she heard few particulars of the last days of the little heir, except that he died at Ypres, and was buried there. "Ypres! of all the places in the world!" ejaculated Rose, in astonishment. Mrs. St. John had gone to England, but not to Alnwick. Alnwick had passed into the hands of the other branch--the St. Johns of Castle Wafer.
"What a miserable succession of misfortunes!" mused Rose, one day, upon reading a letter from her mother. "All Charlotte's grandeur gone from her! First her husband, then the little stepson, next her own boy, and now Alnwick."
"Has she nothing left?" asked Adeline. "No fortune?"
"Just a pittance, I suppose," rejoined Rose. "About as adequate a sum to keep up the state suited to the widow of George St. John of Alnwick, as five pounds a year would be to find me in bonnets. There was something said about George St. John's not being able to make a settlement at the time of the marriage. Most of his money had come to him through his first wife, and his large fortune in prospective has not yet fallen in."
"Will it fall to your sister?"
"Not now. It passes on to Isaac St. John. How rich he'll be, that man!"
Adeline was looking so well. She sat at the table, writing a note to one of the girls at Madame de Nino's. Her dress was of purple silk; its open lace cuffs, of delicate texture, shading her wrists; its white collar, of the same, falling back from her ivory throat. And the face was so lovely still! with its delicate bloom, and its rich dark eyes. Madame de Castella came in.
"Adeline, that English nurse is downstairs--the one who nursed you in the spring," she said. "Would you like to see her?"
"What, Nurse Brayford!" exclaimed Rose, starting up. "I should like to see her. I shall hear about little Georgy St. John."