"Last night; a few minutes before twelve."
"Just as I was stepping on board the steamer at Folkestone," he murmured to himself. "Why is she--there, Rose?--dressed--in that form? Are they mad?"
"It is a custom they have in France, as it seems; but I had never before heard of it," answered Rose. "Hark at the people passing up still!"
A shiver of remembrance took him, but it was conquered immediately. Rose untied the black string of her straw bonnet, and put it on the table.
"I suppose we are both in mourning for the same person," she remarked, in allusion to the narrow band of crape on his hat: "little George St. John."
"Yes," he shortly answered. "What did she die of?"
"Of consumption: at least, that is what the doctors would tell you. I won't say anything about a broken heart." Mr. St. John made no reply. Rose resumed: "From the moment that blood-vessel burst, there has been, I suppose, no real hope, no possibility of cure. But she rallied so greatly, and seemed so well, that I, for one, believed in it." He looked at Rose; the words seemed to arouse his curiosity. "When did she burst a blood-vessel?"
"It was at Beaufoy. It was--why, yes, it was the very day you were last there, Mr. St. John, almost in your sight. You remember the morning you quitted the house, and never came back again?--did you notice Adeline running down the steps of the colonnade after you, imploring you to stop?--did you notice that she sank down on the grass, as if from fatigue?"
"I think I did," he answered, in allusion to the last question. "I know she followed me down the steps."
"It was then the blood-vessel broke; through emotion, no doubt. Had you but looked back once again, you might have seen what was amiss. I never shall forget the sight. Just at first I had thought her foot slipped and threw her down, next I thought she was kneeling for a joke: but when I reached her, I saw what it was. One minute longer, and you would have seen the whole house gathered round her on the lawn. She was got indoors, and the doctors were sent for. What a house it was! She thought she was dying; and I believe the chiefest wish of her heart then was to see you."