“And the others are so young; only I of all your children am old enough to understand you,” cried Rosalind, throwing herself into her stepmother’s arms. They held each other for a moment closely in that embrace which is above words, which is the supreme expression of human emotion and sympathy, resorted to when all words fail, and yet which explains nothing, which leaves the one as far as ever from understanding the other, from divining what is behind the veil of individuality which separates husband from wife and mother from child. Then Mrs. Trevanion rose and put Rosalind softly back upon her pillow and covered her up with maternal care as if she had been a child. “I must not have you catch cold,” she said, with a smile which was her usual motherly smile with no deeper meaning in it. “Now go to sleep, my love, for another hour.”
In her own room Madam exchanged a few words with Jane, who had also been up all night, and who was waiting for her with the tea which is a tired watcher’s solace. “You must do all for me to-day, Jane,” she said; “I cannot leave Mr. Trevanion; I will not, which is more. I have been, alas! partly the means of bringing on this attack.”
“Oh, Madam, how many attacks have there been before without any cause!”
“That is a little consolation to me; still, it is my fault. Tell him how unsafe it is to be here, how curious the village people are, and that I implore him, for my sake, if he thinks anything of that, and for God’s sake, to go away. What can we do more? Tell him what we have both told him a hundred times, Jane!”
“I will do what I can, Madam; but he pays no attention to me, as you know.”
“Nor to any one,” said Madam, with a sigh. “I have thought sometimes of telling Dr. Beaton everything; he is a kind man, he would know how to forgive. But, alas! how could I tell if it would do good or harm?”
“Harm! only harm! He would never endure it,” the other said.
Again Mrs. Trevanion sighed; how deep, deep down was the oppression which those long breaths attempted to relieve. “Oh,” she said, “how happy they are that never stray beyond the limits of nature! Would not poverty, hard work, any privation, have been better for all of us?”
“Sixteen years ago, Madam,” Jane said.