"You are hard, Theo. I am sure it is not Frances that has taught you to be so hard. Do you think that Chatty's life destroyed, as well as his own, is so little? and no laws human or divine could bind him to—I don't think I am lax," Mrs. Warrender cried, with the poignant consciousness of a woman who has always known herself to be even superstitiously bound to every cause of modesty, and who finds herself suddenly assailed as a champion of the immoral. Her middle-aged countenance flushed with annoyance and shame.
"No, I don't suppose you are lax," said Theo: but the lines in his careworn forehead did not melt, and Chatty, who had been directing the maid about the luggage, now came forward and stopped the conversation. Warrender put his mother and sister into a cab, and promised to "come round" and see them in the evening. After he had shut the door, he came back and asked suddenly: "By the way, I suppose you have the last news of Cavendish. How is he?"
"We have no news. Why do you ask? is he ill?"
"Oh, you don't know then?" said Warrender. "I was wondering. He is down with fever, but getting better, I believe, getting better," he added hurriedly, as Chatty uttered a tremulous cry. "They wrote to his people. We were wondering whether you might not have heard."
"And no one thought it worth while to let us know!"
"Lady Horton thought if you did not know it was better to say nothing: and that if you did it was unnecessary—besides, they are like me, they think it is monstrous that a man should go off with an avowed intention—they think in any case it is better to drop it altogether."
"Theo," said Chatty, in her soft voice, "can we hear exactly how he is?"
"He is better, he is going on well, he will get all right. But if you should see Lady Horton——"
Lady Horton was Dick's elder and married sister, she who had stood by him on the day that was to have been his wedding-day.
"I think we had better drive on now," Chatty said. And when Theo's somewhat astonished face had disappeared from the window, and they were rattling along over the stones, she suddenly said, "Do you think it should have been—dropped altogether? Why should it be dropped altogether? I seem to be a little bewildered—I don't —understand. Oh, mamma, I had a presentiment that he was ill—ill and alone, and so far away."