Then a guilty remembrance struck her. She hurried to the door as
Kenrick entered.
"Lady Tressady's maid would like to see you, my lady. They want Sir
George's address. The doctors think she will hardly live over to-morrow."
And behind Kenrick, Justine, the French maid, pushed her way in, weeping and exclaiming. Lady Tressady, it seemed, had been in frightful pain all the afternoon. She was now easier for the moment, though dangerously exhausted. But if the heart attacks returned during the next twenty-four hours, nothing could save her. The probability was that they would return, and she was asking piteously for her son, who had seen her, Justine believed, the day before these seizures began, just before his departure for Paris, and had written. "Et la pauvre âme!" cried the Frenchwoman at last, not caring what she said to this amazing daughter-in-law, "elle est là toujours, quand les douleurs s'apaisent un peu, écoutant, espérant—et personne ne vient—personne! Voulez-vous bien, madame, me dire où on peut trouver Sir George?"
"Poste Restante, Trouville," said Letty, sullenly. "It is the only address that I know of."
But she stood there irresolute and frowning, while the French girl, hardly able to contain herself, stared at the disfigured face, demanding by her quick-breathing silence, by her whole attitude, something else, something more than Sir George's address.
Meanwhile Marcella waited in the background, obliged to hear what passed, and struck with amazement. It is perhaps truer of the moral world than the social that one half of it never conceives how the other half lives. George Tressady's mother—alone—dying—in her son's absence—and Letty Tressady knew nothing of her illness till it had become a question of life and death, and had then actually refused to go—forgotten the summons even!
When Letty, feverish and bewildered, turned back to the companion whose heart had been poured out before her during this past hour of high emotion, she saw a new expression in Lady Maxwell's eyes from which she shrank.
"Ought I to go?" she said fretfully, almost like a peevish child, putting her hand to her brow.
"My carriage is downstairs," said Marcella, quickly. "I can take you there at once. Is there a nurse?" she asked, turning to the maid.
Oh, yes; there was an excellent nurse, just installed, or Justine could not have left her mistress; and the doctor close by could be got at a moment's notice. But the poor lady wanted her son, or at least some one of the family,—Justine bit her lip, and threw a nervous side glance at Letty,—and it went to the heart to see her. The girl found relief in describing her mistress's state to this grave and friendly lady, and showed more feeling and sincerity in speaking of it than might have been expected from her affected dress and manner.