Waring was not at all surprised by the appearance of Frances fresh with the morning air about her. It seemed quite natural to him. He had forgotten all about the London streets, and how far it was from one point to another. He thought she had gained much in her short absence from him,—perhaps in learning how to act for herself, to think for herself, which she had acquired since she left him; for he was entirely unaware, and even quite incapable of being instructed, that Frances had lived her little life as far apart from him, and been as independent of him while sitting by his side at Bordighera, as she could have been at the other end of the world. But he was impressed by the steady light of resolution, the cause of which was as yet unknown to him, which was shining in her eyes. She told him her story at once, without the little explanations that had been necessary to the others. When she said George Gaunt, he knew all that there was to say. The only thing that it was expedient to conceal was Markham’s part in the catastrophe, which was, after all, not at all clear to Frances; and as Waring was not acquainted with Markham’s reputation, there was no suggestion in his mind of the name that was wanting to explain how the young officer, knowing nobody, had found entrance into the society which had ruined him. Frances told her tale in few words. She was magnanimous, and said nothing of Constance on the one hand, any more than of Markham on the other. She told her father of the condition in which the young man lay—of his constant mutterings, so painful to hear, the Red and Black that came up, over and over again, in his confused thoughts, the distracting burden that awaited him if he ever got free of that circle of confusion and pain—of the old people in Switzerland waiting for the daily news, not coming to him as they wished, because of that one dread yet vulgar difficulty which only she understood. “Mamma says, of course they would not hesitate at the expense. Oh no, no! they would not hesitate. But how can I make her understand? yet we know.”
“How could she understand?” he said with a pale smile, which Frances knew. “She has never hesitated.” It was all that jarred even upon her excited nerves and mind. The situation was so much more clear to him than to the others, to whom young Gaunt was a stranger. And Waring, too, was in his nature something of a Quixote to those who took him on the generous side. He listened—he understood; he remembered all that had been enacted under his eyes. The young fellow had gone to London in desperation, unsettled, and wounded by the woman to whom he had given his love—and he had fallen into the first snare that presented itself. It was weak, it was miserable; but it was not more than a man could understand. When Frances found that at last her object was attained, the unlikeliness that it ever should have been attained, overwhelmed her even in the moment of victory. She clasped her arms round her father’s arm, and laid down her head upon it, and, to his great surprise, burst into a passion of tears. “What is the matter? What has happened? Have I said anything to hurt you?” he cried, half touched, half vexed, not knowing what it was, smoothing her glossy hair half tenderly, half reluctantly, with his disengaged hand.
“Oh, it is nothing, nothing! It is my folly; it is—happiness. I have tried to tell them all, and no one would understand. But one’s father—one’s father is like no one else,” cried Frances, with her cheek upon his sleeve.
Waring was altogether penetrated by these simple words, and by the childish action, which reminded him of the time when the little forlorn child he had carried away with him had no one but him in the world. “My dear,” he said, “it makes me happy that you think so. I have been rather a failure, I fear, in most things; but if you think so, I can’t have been a failure all round.” His heart grew very soft over his little girl. He was in a new world, though it was the old one. His sister, whom he had not seen for so long, had half disgusted him with her violent partisanship, though his was the party she upheld so strongly. And Constance, who had no hold of habitual union upon him, had exhibited all her faults to his eyes. But his little girl was still his little girl, and believed in her father. It brought a softening of all the ice and snow about his heart.
They walked together through the many streets to inquire for poor Gaunt, and were admitted with shakings of the head and downcast looks. He had passed a very disturbed night, though at present he seemed to sleep. The nurse who had been up all night, and was much depressed, was afraid that there were symptoms of a “change.” “I think the parents should be sent for, sir,” she said, addressing herself at once to Waring. These attendants did not mind what they said over the uneasy bed. “He don’t know what we are saying, any more than the bed he lies on. Look at him, miss, and tell me if you don’t think there is a change?” Frances held fast by her father’s arm. She was more diffident in his presence than she had been before. The sufferer’s gaunt face was flushed, his lips moved, though, in his weakness, his words were not audible. The other nurse, who had come to relieve her colleague, and who was fresh and unwearied, was far more hopeful. But she, too, thought that “a change” might be approaching, and that it would be well to summon the friends. She went down-stairs with them to talk it over a little more. “It seems to me that he takes more notice than we are aware of,” she said. “The ways of sick folks are that wonderful, we don’t understand, not the half of them; seems to me that you have a kind of an influence, miss. Last night he changed after you were here, and took me for his mamma, and asked me what I meant, and said something about a Miss Una that was true, and a false Jessie or something. I wonder if your name is Miss Una, miss?” This inquiry was made while Waring was writing a telegram to the parents. Frances, who was not very quick, could only wonder for a long time who Una was and Jessie. It was not till evening, nearly twelve hours after, that there suddenly came into her mind the false Duessa of the poet. And then the question remained, who was Una, and who Duessa? a question to which she could find no reply.
Frances remained with her father the greater part of the day. When she found that what she desired was to be done, there fell a strange kind of lull into her being, which unaccountably took away her strength, so that she scarcely felt herself able to hold up her head. She began to be aware that she had neither slept by night nor had any peace by day, and that a fever of the mind had been stealing upon her, a sort of reflection of the other fever, in which her patient was enveloped as in a living shroud. She was scarcely able to stand, and yet she could not rest. Had she not put force upon herself, she would have been sending to and fro all day, creeping thither on limbs that would scarcely support her, to know how he was, or if the change had yet appeared. She had not feared for his life before, having no tradition of death in her mind; but now an alarm grew upon her that any moment might see the blow fall, and that the parents might come in vain. It was while she stood at one of the windows of Mrs Clarendon’s gloomy drawing-room, watching for the return of one of her messengers, that she saw her mother’s well-known brougham drive up to the door. She turned round with a little cry of “Mamma” to where her father was sitting, in one of the seldom used chairs. Mrs Clarendon, who would not leave him for many minutes, was hovering by, wearying his fastidious mind with unnecessary solicitude, and a succession of questions which he neither could nor wished to answer. She flung up her arms when she heard Frances’ cry. “Your mother! Oh, has she dared! Edward, go away, and let me meet her. She will not get much out of me.”
“Do you think I am going to fly from my wife?” Waring said. He rose up very tremulous, yet with a certain dignity. “In that case, I should not have come here.”
“But, Edward, you are not prepared. O Edward, be guided by me. If you once get into that woman’s hands——”
“Hush!” he said; “her daughter is here.” Then, with a smile: “When a lady comes to see me, I hope I can receive her still as a gentleman should, whoever she may be.”
The door opened, and Lady Markham came in. She was very pale, yet flushed from moment to moment. She, who had usually such perfect self-command, betrayed her agitation by little movements, by the clasping and unclasping of her hands, by a hurried, slightly audible breathing. She stood for a moment without advancing, the door closing behind her, facing the agitated group. Frances, following an instinctive impulse, went hastily towards her mother as a maid of honour in an emergency might hurry to take her place behind the Queen. Mrs Clarendon on her side, with a similar impulse, drew nearer to her brother—the way was cleared between the two, once lovers, now antagonists. The pause was but for a moment. Lady Markham, after that hesitation, came forward. She said: “Edward, I should be wanting in my duty if I did not come to welcome you home.”