'Yes, just for a minute; but the room was darkened, and he could not see her properly. She told him that the pain had got on the nerves, and that she really could not bear us near her. But she would not let him send for a doctor, and Biddy seemed to agree with her.'
'Perhaps she will be better to-morrow,' he suggested; and then he left Mollie and went upstairs. 'Poor little girl!' he said to himself; 'I wonder what she would say if she knew her father were living!'
And then he tapped at the drawing-room door. He was not quite sure whether anyone bade him enter. Mrs. Blake was sitting in a chair drawn close to the fire; her back was towards him. She did not move or turn her head as he walked towards her, and when he put out his hand to her she took no notice of it.
'You have come,' she said, in a quick, hard voice. And then she turned away from him and looked into the fire.
'Yes, I have come,' he replied quietly, as he sat down on the oak settle that was drawn up near her chair. 'I am sorry to see you look so ill, Mrs. Blake.'
He might well say so. She had aged ten years since the previous night. Her face was quite drawn and haggard—he had never before noticed that there were threads of gray in her dark hair—she had always looked so marvellously young; but now he could see the lines and the crows'-feet; and as his sharp eyes detected all this he felt very sorry for her.
'Ill; of course I'm ill,' she answered irritably. 'All night long I have been wishing I were dead. I said yesterday that I would rather kill myself than tell you my story; but to-day I have thought better of it.'
'I am glad of that.'
'Of course I am not a fool, and I know I am in your power—yours and that man's.' And here she shivered.
'Will you tell me this one thing first? Is he—is Matthew O'Brien your husband?'