‘No, my dear, no. I was mistaken; it couldn’t have anything to do with that. In short, it was nothing—nothing—only a piece of nonsense—one of my mistakes.’ He looked piteously at Joyce, standing behind, who had dropped her hand, as if abandoning the warning which she had given him. Joyce, in the extremity of her trouble, had fallen into that quiescence which comes with the failure of hope. She remembered the bargain that had been made between them at the instant, but that and everything else seemed of too little importance now to move her beyond a moment. Mrs. Hayward, however, turned round, following her husband’s look.
‘Oh, it is you, Joyce! You wish your father not to tell me.’
‘The fact is,’ said the Colonel, eager to speak, ‘we thought it might annoy you, Elizabeth.’
‘You are taking the best way to annoy me,’ she cried. ‘What is this you have been making up between you? Henry, I have a right at least to the truth from you.’
‘The truth!’ he said; ‘surely, my dear, the truth, if it was of any consequence. Joyce will tell you what happened. It was of no importance. Most likely Lady St. Clair is short-sighted. Many ladies are, you know. Most likely she didn’t make out who we were. That was your opinion, Joyce, wasn’t it?’ The Colonel felt that the best thing he could do, as Joyce did not help him out in safety, was to drag her into her share of the danger.
‘There might be many reasons. I did not think it mattered at all,’ said Joyce.
‘Reasons for what?’ said Mrs. Hayward, stamping her foot on the ground. ‘I think between you you will drive me mad.’
‘My dear! for nothing at all, Elizabeth. She scarcely returned my salutation. The girls all scuttled off across the park like so many rabbits. They are not unlike rabbits,’ the Colonel said, with an ingratiating smile. ‘But we agreed it was of no importance, and that it was useless to speak to you of it, as it might annoy you: we agreed——’
‘You agreed!’ Mrs. Hayward gave Joyce an angry look. ‘I wish in such matters, Henry, you would act from your own impulse, and never mind any one else.’ She swept in before the others into the dining-room, where it was the wont of the household that the Colonel every morning should read prayers. But it is to be feared that these prayers were not so composing to the soul of the mistress of the house as might have been wished. ‘We agreed’—these words kept ringing through the devotions of the family, as if some sprite of mischief had thrown them, a sort of demoniac squib or cracker through the quiet air. To have her husband consult with his daughter as to what should or should not be told to her was more than she could bear.
Mrs. Hayward went out in the afternoon alone to make a call at a much frequented house, where she hoped to discover what was the cause of Lady St. Clair’s rudeness and Mrs. Morton’s strange invitation. She met a great many acquaintances, as was natural in a small place, where all ‘the best people’ knew each other. Among them was Lady St. Clair, who, instead of avoiding her as she had done the Colonel, came forward with empressment, showing the most sympathetic civility. ‘How are you, dear Mrs. Hayward? I hope you are well. I do hope you are bearing—the beginning of the severe weather,’ that lady said, shaking her hand warmly, and looking with tender meaning in her eyes.