“And if it wasn’t as there’s something to be cur’us about it you wouldn’t have sent me, not you,” said Nancy, which was so near the truth that Mrs. Fennell trembled in her chair. But Nancy did not feel disposed to go to extremities, and as Mr. Brownlow entered she disappeared. He had grown pale on his way up the stairs. The moment had come when, perhaps, he must hear his own secret discovery proclaimed as it were on the housetop, and it can not be denied that he had grown pale.
“Well?” he said, sitting down opposite to his mother-in-law on the nearest chair. His breath and his courage were both gone, and he could not find another word to say.
“Well, John Brownlow,” she said, not without a certain triumph mingled with her agitation. “But before I say a word let us make sure that Nancy and her long ears is out of the way.”
Mr. Brownlow rose with a certain reluctance, opened the door, and looked up and down the stair. When he came in again a flush had taken the place of his paleness, and he came and drew his chair close to Mrs. Fennell, bending forward toward her. “What is the matter?” he said; “is it any thing you want, or any thing I can do for you? Tell me what it is!”
“If it was any thing as I wanted it might pass,” said Mrs. Fennell, with a little bitterness; “you know well it wasn’t that you were thinking of. But I don’t want to lose time. There’s no time to be lost, John Brownlow. What I’ve got to say to you is that she’s been to see me. I’ve seen her with my own eyes.”
“Who?” said Mr. Brownlow.
Then the two looked at each other. She, keen, eager, and old, with the cunning of age in her face, a heartless creature beyond all impressions of honesty or pity—he, a man, very open to such influences, with a heart both true and tender, and yet as eager, more anxious than she. They faced each other, he with eyes which, notwithstanding their present purpose, “shone clear with honor,” looking into her bleared and twinkling orbs. What horrible impulse was it that, for the first time, united two such different beings thus?
“I’ve seen her,” said Mrs. Fennell. “There’s no good in naming names. She’s turned up at last. I might have played you false, John Brownlow, and made better friends for myself, but I thought of my Bessie’s bairns, and I played you true. She came to see me yesterday. My heart’s beating yet, and I can’t get it stopped. I’ve seen her—seen her with my own eyes.”
“That woman? Phœbe—?” Mr. Brownlow’s voice died away in his throat; he could not pronounce the last word. Cold drops of perspiration rose to his forehead. He sank back in his chair, never taking his eyes from the weird old woman who kept nodding her head at him, and gave no other reply. Thus it had come upon him at last without any disguise. His face was as white as if he had fainted; his strong limbs shook; his eyes were glassy and without expression. Had he been any thing but a strong man, healthy in brain and in frame, he would have had a fit. But he was healthy and strong; so strong that the horrible crisis passed over him, and he came to himself by degrees, and was not harmed.
“But you did not know her,” he said, with a gasp. “You never saw her; you told me so. How could you tell it was she?”