The maid Elizabeth was her chief attendant; Anna Chester sat with her often. Mrs. Chester, bustling and restless in a sick room as she was elsewhere, was better out of the chamber than in it. To none of these did Clara speak of her husband; but when Fanny ran in, as she did two or three times a day, Clara would ask questions if nobody was within hearing.
"Where's Mr. Lake, Fanny?"
"Oh! he's downstairs in the drawing-room."
"What is he doing?"
"Talking to Lady Ellis."
The answers would vary according to circumstances; and Fanny, too young for any sort of suspicion, was quite ready and willing to give them. "He is reading to Lady Ellis;" or "He is out with Lady Ellis;" or "He and Lady Ellis are sitting together by the fire-light;" just as it might chance to be. Twice Lady Ellis went with him to Katterley, and gave Mrs. Lake on her return a glowing account of how quickly the house was getting on now.
Well, the time wore away somehow, and Mrs. Lake got better and took to sit up in her room. The first time she went downstairs was an evening in November. She did not go down then by orders; quite the contrary. "Not just yet," the doctor had, told her in answer to an inquiry; "in a few days." But she felt very, very dull that afternoon, sitting alone in her chamber. Mrs. Chester and Anna were busy downstairs, making pickles--in the very kitchen that Clara had seen so minutely in her dream; Elizabeth had gone on an errand to Katterley, taking Fanny Chester, and Robert did not come up. She knew he was at home and sat feverishly expecting him, but he never came. Very lonely felt she, very dispirited; tears filled her eyes repeatedly, uncalled for; and so it went on to dusk. Had everybody abandoned her? she thought, sitting there between the lights.
The shadows of the room, only lighted by its fire, threw their sombre darkness across, taking curious shapes. A long narrow box, containing ferns and seaweed, stood on a stool in front of the hearth; as the shadow of it grew deeper on the opposite wall in the rapidly fading daylight, it began to look not unlike a coffin. As this fancy took possession of her, the remembrance of her dream with all its distressing terror suddenly flashed into her mind; she grew nervous and timid; too frightened to remain alone.
Wrapping herself up in a grey chenille shawl, as warmly as her husband had wrapped another that recent bygone night, she prepared to descend. She was fully dressed, in a striped green silk, and her pretty hair was plainly braided from her brow. The lovely face was thin and pale; the dark eyes were larger and sadder than of yore; and she was very weak yet.
Too weak to venture down the staircase alone, as she soon found. But for clinging to the balustrades, she would have fallen. This naturally caused her movements to be slow and quiet. She looked into the dining-room first; it was all in darkness; then she turned to the drawing-room, and pushed open the half-closed door. Little light was there, either; only what came from the fire, and that was low. Standing over it she discerned two forms, which, as she slowly advanced with her tottering steps, revealed themselves as those of her husband and Lady Ellis. She was in her usual evening attire: the black silk gown with the low body and short sleeves, and some black ribbons floated from her hair. Mr. Lake's hand was lightly resting on her neck; ostensibly playing with the jet chain around it, and touching her fair shoulder. Talking together, they did not hear her entrance.