“What Alice says is mere nonsense,” Mrs. Eastwood said, as she went down-stairs. “It is as clear as daylight that poor dear Innocent has been frightened out of her senses. There is nothing at all mysterious about the death. It is delusion, nothing more; you think so, Nelly, too?”
“Of course I think so, mamma,” said Nelly, with fervour. “I was always certain it must turn out so.” But, nevertheless, there was a piteous quaver in both their voices which had not been there when they went joyous and confident to Innocent’s room to set her mind at rest with their good news.
After they had eaten, for the first time almost since Sunday morning—a hurried cup of tea having been their chief support and sustenance in the interval—they sat together for half an hour over the fire with a hidden sense of misery in their hearts, though Mrs. Eastwood’s detailed narrative of all that had befallen her, and Nelly’s many comments and questions, the mutual support of two hearts which were as one, was not without its consolation. Before, however, this long and digressive talk was over Ernest Molyneux’s well-known knock was heard at the door. He had a habit of coming in thus late after his evening engagements. Mrs. Eastwood started up suddenly.
“I am not equal to seeing any one to-night,” she said. “You can tell Ernest I am tired; and Nelly—I don’t bind you, dear, if it will be a comfort to you; but say no more than you can help——”
Thus the mother hurried away, leaving Nelly alone to meet her lover. After all the weariness and horrible suspense of the day, here was a reward for her—a moment of consolation, do you say, gentle reader? Molyneux came in from a dinner-party in evening dress, and with the air of society about him. He had looked in at his club, he had heard the news, he was full of the atmosphere of that conventional and limited sphere which is called the world; and he found Nelly in her morning gown, rising with a nervous shiver from the fire, her face pale, her eyes anxious, a creature trembling with the fulness of a life much different from that of clubs and dinner parties.
“Hallo, Nelly!” he said, looking at her with surprise and tacit disapproval. This sort of carelessness (he would have said) was inexcusable. It shocked his best feelings—a dowdy already before her marriage, idling over the fire in a morning dress; it might be a dressing gown next time, and in married life what would be expected from one who made such a beginning? All these commentaries were in the look he gave her, and the involuntary comparison he conveyed by a glance at himself in the mirror,—himself all gorgeously arranged in purple and fine linen, and with a flower in his coat.
“I have not dressed, it is true,” she said hurriedly. “Innocent is ill, and I have been with her all day. You have not heard of our——trouble. Mamma has been at Sterborne since early this morning——”
“At Sterborne! I thought Innocent was there; and yet you tell me you have been with her all day——”
“Ernest,” said Nelly, breaking in suddenly, “Frederick’s wife is dead——”
“Frederick’s wife!”