She lay down, but could not sleep. How sultry, even stifling, was the atmosphere! The windows of the little room were wide open, but the air that came in from without was heavy and inodorous: it brought no refreshment.
The tread of a belated pedestrian echoed in the street below, and there was the sound of laughter and song from some inn in the neighbourhood. Suddenly the door opened, and the old Countess entered, in a white dressing-gown and lace night-cap. She had a small lamp in her hand, which she put down on a table, and then, seating herself on the edge of the bed, she scanned the young girl with penetrating eyes.
"Is anything troubling you, my child?" she began, after a while.
Erika tried to say no, but the word would not pass her lips. Instead of replying, she turned away her face.
"What was the difficulty between Lord Langley and yourself to-day?" the grandmother went on to ask.
Erika was mute.
"Tell me the simple truth," the old Countess insisted. "Did you not have some dispute this morning?"
"Oh, it was nothing," Erika replied, impatiently; "only--he attempted to play the lover, and I thought it quite unnecessary. Such folly is very unbecoming in a man of his age; and, besides, I cannot endure anything of the kind."
A strange expression appeared upon the grandmother's face,--the same that Goswyn had worn when his indignation had suddenly been transformed into pity for the girl. She cleared her throat once or twice, and then remarked, dryly, "How then do you propose to live with Lord Langley?"
Erika stared at her in dismay. "Good heavens! I have thought very little about it. You know well that I do not wish to marry for love. That is why I accepted an old man instead of a young one,--because I supposed he would refrain from all lover-like folly. You have always told me that you married my grandfather without love, and that it turned out very well."