Agnes Hill had given herself entirely up to her sister in these latter days. There had been nothing at all remarkable about Miss Hill in the former portion of her life. She had never been so attractive as Mary, or so sweet: a good clergyman’s daughter—very thoroughly acquainted with the needs of the parish, and ready at any moment to respond to the call of those who were in need—but no more. However, in her later development many new faculties had appeared in Agnes. She had become a mother to little Mar; a mother with all the devotion of maternity, but with something of the reason of the unmarried woman, whose instinct it is to keep in the background and not to show her feelings. She was, indeed, all the mother little Mar had ever known, but she made no claim upon the first of his affections, always directing them, indeed, towards his adoring father, suppressing herself entirely in favor of Lord Frogmore as the most self-denying of mothers could not have done. And since Mary arrived, and the horror of the discovery that Mary, though sane, was unconscious of the great event of her life—the birth of her child—had burst upon the family, Agnes had devoted herself entirely to her sister. She had, perhaps, as most people have, a secret conviction that her own exertions might bring about that in which no one else had succeeded—that she would surely be able to seize the right moment to bring forgotten circumstances to Mary’s mind, to convince her of that in which it was so strange to think she could require conviction—in the reality of her child’s existence. Agnes had been accordingly her sister’s anxious companion during these days; but she had as yet made no attempt to move her. She had quieted as much as she could Mrs. Hill’s indiscreet remonstrances. She had watched over Mary’s tranquillity and peace, saving her from every disturbance. But when she led Lady Frogmore away from that assemblage of the family, it appeared to Agnes that her time had now come. An hour or two passed during which Mary was soothed and comforted in a natural paroxysm of grief by her anxious sister. But in the evening she was better composed and ready to talk. The nurse of whom Agnes felt no need was sent away. Mrs. Hill had been persuaded that she was over-fatigued and had much better go to bed early after the great strain of the day. The vicar, on the other hand, had been recalled to the necessity of looking over his sermon, as he had to return to his parish before the next Sunday. Thus the two sisters were left alone. “You will make Mary go to bed,” was Mrs. Hill’s last charge. “Oh, yes, I will make her go to bed,” said Agnes—but in reality her mind was full of other things.
“There is one thing,” said Lady Frogmore, “that we must settle soon, and that is where we are to live. It is wonderful how little familiar it feels to me here. Now that my dear lord is gone I don’t seem as if I know this place. He was all that made it feel like home.”
“It is not wonderful you should think so,” said Agnes, “you have been so little here.”
“Only all the time I have been married,” said Mary, with a faint, uneasy smile.
“No, my dear, only a year and a half at first. It is five years and more since you were taken away.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary; “but I am not able to argue, and you are all in a story, as if you wanted to make me believe—— You think I will feel it so much—I know that is your motive. You think that to give up my house and be only the Dowager, while Letitia is here——”
“Mary, you must try to open your eyes to the real state of affairs: why shouldn’t you stay here—with your boy? He ought to be brought up in his own house.”
“Agnes, will you torment me too? Did Frogmore say that? Did he want me to pretend—oh, no! no! My dear old lord would never have done so—for he was true, as true as steel.”
“My poor dear, it is you who are not true—you have been so ill, Mary—you have been away for a long, long time. You were driven into it at the time you were so weak, just before the baby was born. Try and throw back your mind, oh, Mary, dear. Don’t you recollect when the baby was coming. When you were all so happy, dear Frogmore the most of all. Mary, think! when the baby was coming——”
Mary’s pale face flushed. She shook her head. “I never wished it,” she said. “Oh no, I never wished it—to ruin little Duke and do Letitia all that harm——”