“I shall not attempt to see him—I mean Sir George,” says Mrs. Prince, sobbing with an unchecked frankness of emotion which smacks more of her original class than of the one to which she has attained. “But be sure you say everything that is kind and proper. And tell him from me that if there is anything of any sort that we can do or send, we shall be only too glad. One of the most valuable privileges of wealth is to be able to help its less fortunate friends in their need!”
She goes away still sobbing, but partially comforted by her own bit of bunkum, and the thought of the magic properties of the Dropless Candle. An out-of-place flash of what, under less dreadful circumstances, would have been amusement at the thought of Sir George’s frenzy at being patronized as one of Mrs. Prince’s less fortunate friends, darts incongruously across the rector’s wife, as she turns her steps homeward. Her household has to be arranged for; so as to do without her during the next and perhaps many succeeding days—a deprivation to which they usually so strongly object as quite to prevent it, but in which they now acquiesce with tearful eagerness.
Yet what can she do for the stricken household? Can she lift the lids of Rupert’s shut eyes, and bring consciousness, recognition, forgiveness, into them? One agonized ejaculation from Lavinia has revealed to her that the knowledge of having something to forgive had come to him, before setting off on that last walk—a knowledge that had, perhaps, helped him to “lose his head.” “To lose his head!” Yes; that is the phrase which she must always employ, never quitting her hold upon it during the hundreds of times that she will have to repeat the tale. As she stands listening outside the shut door, Lavinia steals out, a ghastly noiseless shadow in the morning light.
“They want more ice!” she says, looking at her friend with dead eyes that do not seem to see her.
“I will order it for you. Is there any change?”
“No, none; but”—an angry terror bringing life back into her face—“that does not mean anything bad?”
“Oh no; not necessarily.”
“They do not expect it yet?”
“Of course not, of course not. While I fetch the ice, won’t you change your dress? it would freshen you, and I would call you in a moment if there was any change.”
“No, no; he might speak. Just while you are calling me, he might say some one thing; he may be saying it now.” And she slips back into the darkness.