'Why, Burton—your precious cousin! I knew it would be so. As sure as that sun is shining, Burton is at the bottom of it all. I have seen it from the first.'
'Dr Maurice,' said Helen, 'where have I seen, where have I read, "Burton and Golden have done it"? The words seem to haunt me. It cannot be fancy.'
Dr Maurice took out his pocket-book. He took a folded paper from an inner pocket, and held it to her without a word. Poor Helen, in the composure which she had attained so painfully, began to shake and tremble; the sight of it moved her beyond her self-control. She could not weep, but her strained nerves quivered, her teeth chattered, her frame was convulsed by the shock. 'Ah!' she cried, as people do when they receive a blow; and yet now she remembered it all—every word; it seemed to be written on her heart.
The physician was alarmed. Human emotion has many ways of showing itself, but none more alarming than this. He put the letter hastily away again, and plunged into wild talk about the way she was living, the house, and the neighbourhood.
'You are taking too little exercise. You are shutting yourself up too much,' he said, with something of that petulance which so often veils pity. He was not going to encourage her to break down by being sorry for her; the other way, he thought, was the best. And then he himself was on the very borders of emotion too, the sight of these words had brought poor Robert so keenly to his mind. And they had brought to his mind also his own hardships. Norah in her new place was very bewildering to him. He had noted her closely while her mother was speaking, and with wonder and trouble had seen a woman look at him through the girl's brown eyes—a woman, a new creature, an independent being, whom he did not know, whom he would have to treat upon a different footing. This discovery, which he had not made at the first glance, filled him with dismay and trouble. He had lost the child whom he loved.
'Norah, come and show me the house,' he said, with a certain despair; and he went away, leaving Helen to recover herself. That was better than going back upon the past, recalling to both the most painful moments of their life.
He took Norah's hand, and walked through the open door into the garden, which was the first outlet he saw.
'Come and tell me all about it,' he said. 'Norah, what have you been doing to yourself? Have you grown up in these three months? You are not the little girl I used to know.'
'Oh, Dr Maurice, do you think I have grown?' cried Norah, with her whole heart in the demand.
And it would be impossible to describe what a comfort this eager question was to him. He laughed, and looked down upon her, and began to feel comfortable again.