"Is he worse to-night?" asked Sir James, gently.
"It is the pain," she said, in a muffled voice; "and we can't touch it--yet. He mustn't have any more morphia--yet."
She sat down once more. Sir James, the best of gossips, glided off into talk of London, and of old common friends, trying to amuse and distract her. But he realized that she scarcely listened to him, and that he was talking to a woman whose life was being ground away between a last affection and the torment it had power to cause her. A new Lady Lucy, indeed! Had any one ever dared to pity her before?
Meanwhile, five miles off, a girl whom he loved as a daughter was eating her heart out for sorrow over this mother and son--consumed, as he guessed, with the wild desire to offer them, in any sacrificial mode they pleased, her youth and her sweet self. In one way or another he had found out that Hugh Roughsedge had been sent about his business--of course, with all the usual softening formulæ.
And now there was a kind of mute conflict going on between himself and Mrs. Colwood on the one side, and Diana on the other side.
No, she should not spend and waste her youth in the vain attempt to mend this house of tragedy!--it was not to be tolerated--not to be thought of. She would suffer, but she would get over it; and Oliver would probably die. Sooner or later she would begin life afresh, if only he was able to stand between her and the madness in her heart.
But as he sat there, looking at Lady Lucy, he realized that it might have been better for his powers and efficacy as a counsellor if he, too, had held aloof from this house of pain.
CHAPTER XXIV
It was about ten o'clock at night. Lankester, who had arrived from London an hour before, had said good-night to Lady Lucy and Sir James, and had slipped into Marsham's room. Marsham had barred his door that evening against both his mother and Sir James. But Lankester was not excluded.