This was so entirely unexpected after she had given up all thought of it. She decided within herself in a moment that the curate was right when he said that the stranger looked like a lady. Yes, she looked like it; but—there was something in the dress of Mr. Sandford’s daughter, in her look, in the gravity of her manners, which gave a sudden enlightenment to the inquirer. She wore a peculiar bonnet closely encircling her face; a long cloak, a black heavy gown which was not newly got for mourning, but evidently her habitual dress. The experienced half-clerical lady of the parish perceived in a moment with whom she had to do.
‘I am so glad to have met you before you go,’ she said, putting out her hand, ‘although glad is scarcely a word to use—in the present sad circumstances.’
‘How do you do?’ Emily said, with a grave movement of her head. It was more disconcerting than if she had reproved the undue warmth of the visitor in so many words. Mrs. Egerton felt herself obliged to be conciliatory, to make herself agreeable if possible to this serious woman with her pale handsome face.
‘I may call myself an old friend,’ she said, with a feeble smile, ‘though I have never seen you before. I have been away, unfortunately, during—all that has happened. I was so grieved to hear—and that you were just too late.’
‘No one need be grieved to hear that suffering is over,’ said Mr. Sandford’s daughter; ‘for my part I could not but be glad. I would not have had her suffer an hour or a moment longer, for me——’
‘But you might have been called sooner—before the illness had gone so far. These, however, are vain things to say. No doubt,’ said Mrs. Egerton, ‘everything is for the best.’
To this general statement Emily made no reply. She did not ask the visitor to sit down again. She did not even come into the room herself, but stood in the little passage outside the open door.
‘I am glad to see your father so well,’ Mrs. Egerton said.
‘Yes, he is very well. The health does not suffer from distress of mind so much as people think.’
‘That is true, though it is very strange to think that it should be so.’