Mrs. Spencer answered with a bitter cry. ‘Then I am nothing to her, nothing to her!’ she said.
It was at this moment that I interfered. I could keep silence no longer. I put myself between the two who were so happy and the one who was so miserable. ‘Before another word is said I must have this explained to me,’ I said. ‘He is Edith Bellinger’s husband. And this is my house——’
He interrupted me hurriedly: ‘I am no one’s husband but hers,’ he said. ‘You have been mistaken. Edith Bellinger has married my brother. There is no woman to me in the world but Isabella—never has been—never could be, though I lived a hundred years.’
‘And it is you who have brought us together,’ cried Lady Isabella, suddenly throwing her arms round me. ‘God bless you for it! I should never have known, it would never have been possible but for you.’
And he came to me and took both my hands. ‘God bless you for it, I say too! We might have been two forlorn creatures all our lives but for you.’
I was overwhelmed with their thanks, with the surprise, and the shock. If I had done anything to bring this about I had done it in ignorance; but they surrounded me so with their joy and their gratitude, and the excitement of the revolution which had happened in them, that it was some minutes before I could think of anything else. And there was so much to be explained. But when I recovered myself so far as to look round and think of the other who did not share in their joy, I found she was gone. She had disappeared while they were thanking me, while I was expressing my wonder and my good wishes. None of us had either heard or seen her departure, but she was gone.
‘Was Mrs. Spencer to blame?’ I asked with some anxiety when the tumult had subsided a little, and they had seated themselves like ordinary mortals and begun to accustom themselves to their delight. ‘Had she anything to do with the quarrel between you?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Lady Isabella. ‘She never saw George till she saw him in your house.’
‘When you asked me for that rose—’ said he. ‘The rose you used to be so fond of; and I felt as if the skies had opened——’
‘You turned your back upon me all the same,’ she said with the laugh that had suddenly become so joyous. They had forgotten everything but themselves and the new story of their reconciliation: which I suppose the old story of their estrangement thus recalled and reconsidered made doubly sweet.