'That comes o' Miss Norah being out to tea,' said Susan. 'I'd think of old times fast enough if I could do any good. But what's the use? Thinking and thinking only moiders a body's brain. I've give it up for my part.'
'It is the wisest way,' said Helen, trying to smile.
'Shall I ask Miss Jane to come and stay with you a bit? or shall I run for Miss Norah?' asked Susan, who was practical-minded, and felt that something ought to be done.
'Never mind, Susan. It is very kind of you to think of me. It will pass over directly,' said Helen; and she was so decided and imperative that Susan was forced to yield.
When she was gone, Mrs Drummond rose and walked about the room with hasty, tremulous steps. She was not sick nor sorry, as the woman thought, but burning with wild indignation, sudden rage. Her better feelings were overwhelmed by the tide of passion that rushed into her mind. 'Golden and Burton! Golden and Burton!' When she had last repeated these words she had felt herself powerless, helpless, unable to inflict any punishment upon them, compelled to subside into silence, knowing that neither her voice nor anything she could do would reach them. It was different now, she said to herself, with fierce satisfaction. Now she had indeed something in her power; now she could indeed reach the very heart of one of them. Her cheek glowed, her eyes blazed in her solitude. She would do it. She would abstract Mr Rivers from them utterly, and she would break the heart of their boy. She seemed to hold it in her hand, and crush it, as she pursued these thoughts. This was the horrible effect produced upon a reasonable woman by the appearance of a man who had wronged her. It is not easy to bear the seeming prosperity of the wicked. He had taken from Helen all, except Norah, that made life worth having, and he himself had appeared to her full of jovial talk and laughter, going to visit at Dura, evidently a favoured guest. The difficulty was one which David felt even more deeply, and has argued with himself upon in many a strain which religion has made familiar to us as the air we breathe. In the Psalms it is never said that it is wrong to chafe at the prosperity of evil-doers, but only that that prosperity is short-lived, and that ruin is coming. When Helen suddenly saw her enemy, the wicked man par excellence, the incarnation of wrong and cruelty, flourishing like the green bay-tree, gay and confident as he had always been, it was not wonderful if she took the Old Testament rather than the New for her guide. The only strange thing was, that with the curious inconsistency of human nature, she grasped the weapon that she had suddenly found at her side, to strike, not him, but his companion. Golden and Burton! Once more they had become one to her; her enemies—the incarnation of murder, slander, and wrong!
'Mamma, Ned has walked across with me,' said Norah, running in all fresh from the outer air, with a red hood over her brown hair. 'May I ask him to come in? He looks so unhappy, mamma.'
'I don't see that we have anything to do with his unhappiness,' said Helen; but already he was standing at the door, looking in very wistfully. Norah was rather wistful too; her heart was relenting over her old vassal; and now there was no Mr Rivers in the way to take possession of her, and come between her and the looks of others.
Ned came in with very doubtful step, not knowing whether to be frightened or glad. He was not afraid of Mrs Drummond; she had never been unkind to him, and there seemed a possibility now that his misery might be over, and that Norah might relent. But it was a shock to Ned to find that she did not offer him her hand, but only bowed stiffly, and began to speak to her daughter.
'You are early to-night,' she said. 'I did not expect you so soon.'
'Oh, mamma, soon! Why, it is eleven; and you have the tea-things still on the table. Mamma, I shall never be able to go anywhere, if you behave so. You have not had any tea.'