“The proof,” he replied, with a long-drawn breath, “who it was.”
CHAPTER XLII.
Evelyn left the little sitting-room and went downstairs with a quickly beating heart. She did not quite see the meaning of what she was bidden to do. It was like the formula of a doctor’s prescription, obscure yet authoritative, and to be obeyed without doubt or delay. Her heart was beating high, and her brain throbbing in sympathy. She had no thought but to get as quickly as possible to the nearest telegraph office; the only thing that restrained her was the thought that she was not quite sure where her husband was. It had been settled that he should return home that day, on which she had determined to return too so as to meet him. That part of her intention she evidently could not carry out, but in her absorption she did not reflect that, if he had arrived, it would be to the disappointment and surprise of finding her gone, without any explanation; that he would probably be annoyed and displeased, and not in a mood to receive her laconic and unexplained question graciously. This did not enter into Evelyn’s mind at all. She was given up to one thought. That Rowland should be harsh to her or misunderstand her did not occur to her as possible.
She hurried downstairs to fulfil her mission, bidding Eddy remain and take his breakfast. “You look as if you wanted it, my poor boy,” she said, patting him on the shoulder.
“Oh, I want it—and something stronger!” he said, with a laugh.
“No, my dear; oh, no, my dear,” she said anxiously. She even came back from the door, hurried and eager as she was, to deliver, like a true woman, a few very broken words on this subject. “Be content with the tea, dear Eddy,” she said. A great tenderness for the boy had risen in her breast. He had never known his mother; how much there was to be excused in him! And he might have been her own son! though she thanked God that it was not so, and reflected with horror what her life would have been, had her youthful hopes been fulfilled, with such a man as Edward Saumarez had turned out to be, and with such a son: yet the very thought that she might have been the boy’s mother always softened Evelyn. He was such a boy, too, still! though he had run the course of so many unknown ills—young enough to be taken into his mother’s arms, if he had one, and coaxed and persuaded back to innocence. Eddy had no such feeling in the roused and excited state of his mind; he would not laugh as she left him so as she could hear, but waited till, as he thought, she had left the house before he allowed that unsteady peal to burst forth. “Be content with the tea! Oh, the natural preacher, the all-advising woman!” but with the sound of that “dear Eddy!” in his ears the young man laughed till he cried—only because it was so good a joke, he said to himself: but in this there was a certain self-deception too.
Evelyn was hurrying out, waiting for no one to open the door for her, when she was suddenly stopped by Rogers, the servant who, she now recollected suddenly, was the personal attendant of Saumarez himself. She had not attempted to account for his presence, nor indeed thought of him in the hurry of her thoughts. But it now flashed upon her, with sudden surprise and vexation, in the enlightenment of his words—“My master, ma’am,” he said, “would like to see you before you go.”
“Your master!” It was with a gasp of alarm that Evelyn replied. “I did not know,” she said, “that Mr. Saumarez was here.”
“We came home—sudden,” said the man, “yesterday. My master will often take a fancy like that. And he hopes, ma’am, that you will not go out of the house without giving him the pleasure of seeing you.”
“I am in great haste,” Mrs. Rowland said. “I came to Mr. Edward entirely on business. I am very sorry Mr. Saumarez was told that I was here: for indeed I have no time——”