‘Who is there?’
‘It is I, mamma! Let me in!’
‘Go away, dear; I am dressing.’
‘Papa has sent me for you. He has just come home, and is waiting to see you.’
Waiting to see her? She shuddered as if stabbed, and unconsciously made a gesture of supplication. Could he have heard the truth, or a whisper of the truth?
‘Mamma, do you hear? Will you not come?’
She forced herself to answer—
‘Yes, I am coming. Go away now, dear! I will be down directly.’
Then she heard the little feet pattering away. She rose and wearily paced up and down the room. Her heart felt dead within her, her whole life frozen in her veins. She looked in the glass, and was startled at her face; it was so ghastly in its set look of pain.
What could she do? She knew that if she did not go down Forster would be certain to come to seek her. At last she resolved in very desperation to answer his summons. She cared not what happened now; if the worst came, it must come sooner or later. Perhaps she might summon up courage to tell him the truth with her own lips.