I can't tell what I felt like; even now I hate to remember it. My own grandmamma to speak to me in that voice and not to care whether I was hurt or not! I think some servant was called to wipe up the ink, and I made my way, stiff and bruised and giddy, to the dining-room—I had not even the refuge of my own room to cry in at peace—while Cousin Cosmo and the doctors went back to the library. And not long after, I heard the front door close and a carriage drive away.
I thought my cup was full, but it was not, as you shall hear. I didn't try to do any lessons. My head was aching and I didn't feel as if it mattered what I did or didn't do.
'If only my room was ready,' I thought, half stupidly, 'I wouldn't mind so much.'
I think I must have cried a good deal almost without knowing it, for after a while, when the footman came into the room, I started up with a conscious feeling of not wanting to be seen, and turned towards the window, where I stood pretending to look out. Not that there was anything to be seen; the fog was getting so thick that I could scarcely distinguish the railings a few feet off.
The footman left the room again, but I felt sure he was coming back, so I crept behind the shelter of the heavy curtains and curled myself up on the floor, drawing them round me. And then, how soon I can't tell, I fell asleep. It has always been my way to do so when I've been very unhappy, and the unhappier I am the more heavily I sleep, though not in a nice refreshing way.
I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. I could not have been asleep more than an hour, but to me it seemed like a whole night, and as I was beginning to collect my thoughts I heard voices talking in the room behind me. It must have been these voices which had awakened me.
The first I heard was Mr. Vandeleur's.
'I am very sorry about it,' he was saying, 'but I see no help for it. I would not for worlds distress you if I could avoid doing so, for all my old debts to you, my dear aunt, are doubled now by your devotion to Agnes. She will in great measure owe her life to you, I feel.'
'You exaggerate it,' said grandmamma, 'though I do believe I am a comfort to her. But never mind about that just now—the present question is Helena.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'I can't tell you how strongly I feel that it would be for the child's good too, though I can quite understand it would be difficult for you to see it in that light.'