She closed her eyes, looking so gray and old that Marcia, seized with a new compunction, could only obey her at once. But on the threshold she was called back.
"If any messenger arrives with a letter for Arthur—tell them down-stairs to let me know."
"Yes, mother."
As soon, however, as she had closed the door Marcia's tired mind immediately dismissed the subject of Arthur, even of her mother. The tumult of anguish returned upon her in which she had stood ever since she had come back from her faint to the bitter consciousness of a world—an awful world—where people can die of misery for lack of pity, for lack of help, and yet within a stone's-throw of those who yearned to give them both.
She went back to her room, finished her dressing mechanically, wrote a short letter, blotting it with tears, and then went tottering down-stairs. In the central hall, a vast pillared space, crowded with statuary and flowers, where the men of the house were accustomed to smoke and read the newspapers after breakfast, she perceived Reginald Lester sitting alone.
He sprang up at sight of her, came to her, took her hands, looked into her face, and then stooped and kissed her fingers, respectfully, ardently; with such an action as a brother might have used to a much younger sister.
She showed no surprise. She simply lifted her eyes to him, like a miserable child—saying under her breath:
"You know—I saw them—the night before last?"
"I know. It has been a fearful shock. Is there anything I can do for you?" For he saw she had a letter in her hand.
"Please tell them to send this letter. And then—come back. I'll go to the library."