Yet she had lived through it, and the house, Eltham House, had not fallen down on them, nor had the ground opened and swallowed them, and neither her grandmother herself nor Leigh seemed to realise the enormity of the crime!
Even if she had been the young lady of her imagination, and the young men of her fancy had taken flesh and done this thing, it would be unendurable degradation. What had occurred had been endured, although to reason a thing infinitely less seemed unendurable! In pity's name, had all that had taken place happened to her, Edith Grace?
Thoughts in part such as these had haunted the dark hours and early morning of the young girl. What wonder she was wakeful. Then she had to consider the future. Turn which way she might, the prospect was not cheerful. The necessity for her seeking her own living was as imperative as ever. She could not live at home in idleness without absolutely depriving her grandmother of the comforts of life. All her own money had vanished into thin air, and so much of Mrs. Grace's that there would be barely enough for her mere comfort. When Edith arranged to go to Eltham House Mrs. Grace had given the landlady notice that she should no longer require the second bed-room. It was doubtful if even the sitting-room could be retained, and if the old woman had to content herself with a bed-room and the "use" of a sitting-room (which no lodger ever used except to eat in), the poor old woman would mope and pine and, in all likelihood, sicken and break down. This consideration, being one not of her own, Edith allowed to trouble her deeply. For herself she had no pity, but she could not forbear weeping in the security of her own room when she thought of her grandmother suffering absolute poverty in old age. No wonder the girl looked pale and worn.
She was standing at the window absorbed in thought, when Mrs. Grace glided into the room and took the girl in her arms before Edith was aware of her presence.
"Thank God, you are here once more, my darling. To see you makes even this place look like home. Oh, what a miserable time it was to me while my child was away. It seemed an age. Short as it was, it seemed an age, darling. Of one thing, Edy, I am quite certain, that no matter what is to become of us we shall never be separated again, never, darling, never. That is, if you are not too proud or too nice to be satisfied with what will satisfy your old grandmother."
It was only in moments of great emotion that Mrs. Grace called her grand-daughter by the affectionate pet name, Edy. The girl's name was Edith, and she looked all Edith could mean, and deserved the full stateliness of the name. But this morning the old woman's heart was overflowing upon the lost one who had returned. The heart of the blameless prodigal was so disturbed and softened that it became human, and all Edith could say or do was to fall upon the bosom of the old woman, and with her young, soft, moist lips, kiss the dry lips of the other and cry out:
"Oh, mother! oh, mother!" and burst into tears.
Mrs. Grace calling the young girl Edy was not by any means common, but Edith's weeping in a scene was without any parallel. It frightened the grandmother. What she, the passionless, the collected, the just Edith in tears! This was very serious, very serious indeed. The affair of Eltham House must have had a much greater effect upon the child than anything which had hitherto occurred, for Mrs. Grace could remember no other manifestation exactly so sudden and so vehement.
"There child, there!" cried the old woman, caressing the bent, shapely, smooth head against her breast. She durst not say any more. She was afraid of checking this outburst of feeling, afraid of saying something which would not be in harmony with the feelings of this troubled young heart.
So the girl sobbed her long-pent torrent of chaotic feeling away, the old woman stroking softly the dark glossy hair with one hand and pressing the head to her bosom with the other.