Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there—don’t see him. It would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well off?”
“Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said.
“Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your place.”
At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen before—and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.”
Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know. She thought it must be some old relative of Madeline, some one who had known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting, and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.
“Oh, Mr. Saumarez,” said Lady Leighton, “I am so sorry this has happened I do hope it will not hurt you. Had I not better ring for your man? You know that you must not do too much or excite yourself. Let me lead you back to your chair.”
A faint smile came over the ashen face. “She doesn’t know me,” he said.
Oh, heaven and earth, was this he? A pang of wonder, of keen pain and horror, shot through Evelyn like a sudden blow, shaking her from head to foot. It was not possible! the room swam round her, and all that was in it. He! The name had been like a pistol shot in her head, and then something, a look, as if over some chilly snowy landscape, a gleam of cold light had startled her even before the name. “Is it——is it? I did not know you had been ill,” she said, almost under her breath.
“Yes, it is my own self, and I have been ill, extremely ill; but I am getting better. I will sit down if you will permit me. I am not in the least excited; but very glad to see Mrs. Rowland and offer her my congratulations. I am not in such good case myself,—nobody is likely to congratulate me.”
“I do not see that,” said Lady Leighton. “You are so very much better than you have been.”