“Mean—what?” he said. “I am a little confused to-night. It was all so sudden. I don’t seem to understand you. And I’m very tired. Things will be clearer to-morrow. Sara, I hope you are going to bed.”
“Yes, papa,” she said, like a child, though her lips quivered. He looked like a man who had fallen into sudden imbecility, comprehending nothing. And Sara’s mind too was beginning to get confused. She could not understand any longer what his looks meant.
“And so am I,” said Mr. Brownlow, with a sigh. Then he stooped and kissed her. “My darling, good-night. Things will be clearer to-morrow,” he said. They had come to his door by this time. And it was there he stooped to kiss her, dismissing her as it seemed. But after she had turned to go back, he came out again and called her. He looked almost as old and as shaken as Mrs. Preston as he called her back: “Don’t forsake me—don’t you forsake me,” he said hurriedly; “that was all—that was all: good-night.”
And then he went in and shut his door. Sara, left to herself, went back along the corridor, not knowing what to think. Were they all mad, or going mad? What could the shock be which had made Pamela’s humble mother frantic, and confused Mr. Brownlow’s clear intellect? She lay down on her sofa to watch her patient, feeling as if she too was becoming idiotic. She could not sleep, young as she was: the awful shadow that had come across her mind had murdered sleep. She lay and listened to Mrs. Preston’s irregular, interrupted breathing, far into the night. But sleep was not for Sara’s eyes.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE MORNING LIGHT.
Of all painful things in this world there are few more painful than the feeling of rising up in the morning to a difficulty unsolved, a mystery unexplained. So long as the darkness is over with the night something can always be done. Calamity can be faced, misfortune met; but to get up in the morning light, and encounter afresh the darkness, and find no clue any more than you had at night, is hard work. This was what Jack felt when he had to face the sunshine, and remembered all that had happened, and the merry party that awaited him down stairs, and that he must amuse his visitors as if this day had been like any other. If he but knew what had really happened! But the utmost he could do was to guess at it, and that in the vaguest way. The young man went down stairs with a load on his mind, not so much of care as of uncertainty. Loss of fortune was a thing that could be met; but if there was loss of honor involved—if his father’s brain was giving way with the pressure—if—Jack would not allow his thoughts to go any farther. He drew himself up with a sudden pull, and stopped short, and went down stairs. At the breakfast-table every thing looked horribly unchanged. The guests, the servants, the routine of the cheerful meal, were just as usual. Mr. Brownlow, too, was at the table, holding his usual place. There was an ashy look about his face, which produced inquiries concerning his health from every new arrival; but his answers were so brief and unencouraging that these questions soon died off into silence. And he ate nothing, and his hand shook as he put his cup of coffee to his pallid lips. All these were symptoms that might be accounted for in the simplest way by a little bodily derangement. But Jack, for his part, was afraid to meet his father’s eye. “Where is Sara?” he asked, as he took his seat. And then he was met—for he was late, and most of the party were down before him—by a flutter of regrets and wonder. Poor Sara had a headache—so bad a headache that she would not even have any one go into her room. “Angelique was keeping the door like a little tiger,” one of the young ladies said, “and would let nobody in.” “And oh, tell me who it was that came so late last night,” cried another. “You must know. We are all at such a pitch of curiosity. It must be a foreign prince, or the prime minister, or some great beauty, we can’t make up our minds which; and, of course, it is breakfasting in its own room this morning. Nobody will tell us who it was. Do tell us!—we are all dying to know.”
“As you will all be dreadfully disappointed,” said Jack. “It was neither a prince nor a beauty. As for prime minister I don’t know. Such things have been heard of as that a prime minister should be an old woman—”
“An old woman!” said his innocent interlocutor. “Then it must be Lady Motherwell. Oh, I don’t wonder poor Sara has a headache. But you know you are only joking. Her dear Charley would never let her come storming to any body’s door like that.”
“It was not Lady Motherwell,” said Jack. Heaven knows he was in no mood for jesting; but when it is a matter which is past talking of, what can a man do?