John Trevanion took his hands from his face, and looked at her with a look which brought more certainty than words. The old lawyer clasped his hands upon the papers before him, without lifting his eyes, and mournfully nodded again and again his gray head. But she waited for an answer. She could not let herself believe it. “It is not that? My head is going round. I don’t understand the meaning of words. It is not that?”
And then she rose up suddenly to her feet, clasping her hands together, and cried out, “My God!” The men rose too, as with one impulse; and John Trevanion called out loudly to the doctor, who hurried to her. She put them away with a motion of her hands. “The doctor? What can the doctor do for me?” she cried, with the scorn of despair. “Go, go, go! I need no support.” The men had come close to her on either side, with that confused idea that the victim must faint or fall, or sustain some physical convulsion, which men naturally entertain in respect to a woman. She made a motion, as if to keep them away, with her arms, and stood there in the midst, her pale face, with the white surroundings of her distinctive dress, clearly defined against the other dusk and troubled countenances. They thought the moments of suspense endless, but to her they were imperceptible. Not all the wisest counsellors in the world could have helped her in that effort of desperation which her lonely soul was making to understand. There was so much that no one knew but herself. Her mind went through all the details of a history unthought of. She had to put together and follow the thread of events, and gather up a hundred indications which now came all flashing about her like marsh-lights, leading her swift thoughts here and there, through the hitherto undivined workings of her husband’s mind, and ripening of fate. Thus it was that she came slowly to perceive what it meant, and all that it meant, which nature, even when perceiving the sense of the words, had refused to believe. When she spoke they all started with a sort of panic and individual alarm, as if something might be coming which would be too terrible to listen to. But what she said had a strange composure, which was a relief, yet almost a horror, to them. “Will you tell me,” she asked, “exactly what it is, again?”
Old Mr. Blake sat down again at the table, fumbled for his spectacles, unfolded his papers. Meanwhile she stood and waited, with the others behind her, and listened without moving while he read, this time in its legal phraseology, the terrible sentence. She drew a long breath when it was over. This time there was no amaze or confusion. The words were like fire in her brain.
“Now I begin to understand. I suppose,” she said, “that there is nothing but public resistance, and perhaps bringing it before a court of law, that could annul that? Oh, do not fear. I will not try; but is that the only way?”
The old lawyer shook his head. “Not even that. He had the right; and though he has used it as no man should have used it, still, it is done, and cannot be undone.”
“Then there is no help for me,” she said. She was perfectly quiet, without a tear or sob or struggle. “No help for me,” she repeated, with a wan little smile about her mouth. “After seventeen years! He had the right, do you say? Oh, how strange a right! when I have been his wife for seventeen years.” Then she added, “Is it stipulated when I am to go? Is there any time given to prepare? And have you told my boy?”
“Not a word has been said, Grace—to any one,” John Trevanion said.
“Ah, I did not think of that. What is he to be told? A boy of that age. He will think his mother is— John, God help me! what will you say to my boy?”
“God help us all!” cried the strong man, entirely overcome. “Grace, I do not know.”
“The others are too young,” she said; “and Rosalind— Rosalind will trust me; but Rex—it will be better to tell him the simple truth, that it is his father’s will; and perhaps when he is a man he will understand.” She said this with a steady voice, like some queen making her last dispositions in full health and force before her execution—living, yet dying. Then there ensued another silence, which no one ventured to break, during which the doomed woman went back into her separate world of thought. She recovered herself after a moment, and, looking round, with once more that faint smile, asked, “Is there anything else I ought to hear?”