"That is what I meant," she answers, quietly—with great presence of mind endeavouring to prevent her defeat from being converted into a rout; and though she deceives neither herself nor him, the effort to do both is at least laudable.
And Esther, interrupted midway in the packing of her few and paltry goods by the sharper recurrence of that pain in her side, lies on her bed, shut out by the strength of that bodily agony from all power of mental suffering. The excitement of the night—the exposure to the chill morning air—the thorough wetting undergone in her wild run through the park, amid the driving rain, have hastened the coming of that great sickness with which for weeks past she has been threatened.
Darkness falls: dinner-time comes. Presently the housemaid, who had formerly given her the laudanum, knocks at her door.
"Dinner, please, miss."
"I cannot go down," answers the poor child, rather piteously, sitting up, and pushing away the tumbled hair from her flushed cheeks, while her eyes blink in the candle-light. "I don't want any dinner; I'm ill!"
"Dear me, 'm! you do look bad!" exclaims the woman, drawing nearer to the bed, and speaking with an accent half-shocked, half-pleased; for, in a servant's eyes, the next best thing to a death in the house is a serious illness. "Would not you like to have Mr. Brand sent for?"
"Oh, no—thanks!" replies the girl, sinking wearily back on her pillow. "I daresay it will go of itself."—"If I did send for him, I have no money to pay for him," is her mental reflection.
The evening drags away about as heavily as usual in the saloon. Gerard, having ascertained that Miss Craven is still in the house, and has consequently broken her resolution of not sleeping another night under the same roof with him, tries to content himself with the idea that to-morrow—her temporary indisposition probably past—he will have another opportunity of reasoning and pleading with her. About nine o'clock Miss Blessington's maid appears at the door.
"Please 'm, might I speak to you for a moment?"
"Certainly," answers Constance, graciously, rising and walking off to the demanded conference.