The exchange was made; in two minutes more she was in the fly with Lord Dunsmore; than whom her own brother could not have been kinder or more considerate.
They were just in time at the station, and were saved all the agony of delay. Once in the train, Hilary began to ask some questions; and Lord Dunsmore had to explain how he came to be connected with the affair. The news had been telegraphed early that the Erratic was at Spithead, and then came the captain ashore in his gig—not the captain whom Lord Dunsmore, remembering Hilary, expected to see, but another, who brought the news that Captain Hepburn was sick, on
the invalid list; on this the admiral immediately offered his tender to bring him on shore, and Lord Dunsmore had gone out in the vessel, partly from anxiety for the invalid, to take him late news of his wife, and partly, perhaps, from other motives.
He introduced himself to the two passengers, offered his services in any way that would be of use, was most kindly received, and it was soon settled among the gentlemen that, while Maurice attended his brother-in-law to the lodgings in Southsea, which he had already sent on shore to secure, this new friend should set off by the next train, to bring back Hilary to the longing husband.
“Lodgings!” said Hilary. “Can he not be moved home!”
“I should hope he might eventually; but the first thing was to get him safe on shore. The lodgings are only taken for a week!”
“And he—tell me—I can bear it now, what is the matter?”
Hilary’s face showed how she had, by a strong effort, brought her mind to bear, and her lips to utter these words.
“It was an accident, I understood; he hurt himself, and can not, at present, stand or walk; though I should not have known from his face there was any thing the matter. He is helpless.”
This did not sound so very bad; Hilary’s imagination for a moment suggested to her a variety of possible accidents, which might merely disable him for a time; and for a little while her previous alarm seemed unfounded. Then her memory again presented her companion’s manner, the fixed gravity, the mournful glance, the utter absence of all attempts at lessening her terror; he had never bid her hope, he had never said she was too uneasy; he named no serious cause for alarm, perhaps, but he felt it, and he meant her to feel it too. It was what he did not say, rather than what he did, which aroused fear; and the cold, heavy weight of hopeless though undefined dread sank on her heart and threatened to crush it quite.