"How well you are getting to look, my darling," he said, tenderly.
And it would no doubt have astonished Mr. Lake excessively could he have glanced back at his wife through the garden and the walls of the house as he went off, gaily whistling. Dropping her work on the floor, she fell into a storm of sobs in her utter self-abandonment. Miss Jupp came in, and so found her.
"Clara! Clara!"
Up she got: but to affect indifference was an impossibility. Mary Jupp, greatly shocked, took the sorrowful face in her sheltering arms.
"Tell me what it is, Clara. Open your poor little heart to me, my dear. I am older than you by many years, and have had trouble myself. Where's your husband?"
"Gone to Guild."
"Oh," said Miss Jupp, shortly, who had her private opinion on many things. "Well, dear, he has got a nice day for it."
Clara dried her eyes and stifled her sobs, and sat down to work again.
"I am so stupid," she said, in a tone of apology. "Since my illness I don't feel strong; it makes me cry sometimes."
Mary Jupp said no more, perhaps wisely. She took her things off and remained the day. And Mr. Lake got home, not by seven at night, but by the last train.