“And yet I cannot face him,” said she.
“Well,” said I, “you can return to Mr. Henry; I will see my lord.”
As we walked back, I bearing the candlesticks, she the sword—a strange burthen for that woman—she had another thought. “Should we tell Henry?” she asked.
“Let my lord decide,” said I.
My lord was nearly dressed when I came to his chamber. He heard me with a frown. “The free-traders,” said he. “But whether dead or alive?”
“I thought him——” said I, and paused, ashamed of the word.
“I know; but you may very well have been in error. Why should they remove him if not living?” he asked. “O! here is a great door of hope. It must be given out that he departed—as he came—without any note of preparation. We must save all scandal.”
I saw he had fallen, like the rest of us, to think mainly of the house. Now that all the living members of the family were plunged in irremediable sorrow, it was strange how we turned to that conjoint abstraction of the family itself, and sought to bolster up the airy nothing of its reputation: not the Duries only, but the hired steward himself.
“Are we to tell Mr. Henry?” I asked him.
“I will see,” said he. “I am going first to visit him; then I go forth with you to view the shrubbery and consider.”