“Promise me that you will speak to her at once,” he said, as he walked beside her rather feebly; and his gait became all at once like that of an old man. But Phillis fenced this remark very discreetly.
“This afternoon or this evening, when I get the chance,” she said, very decidedly: “if I am to help you, it must be as I think best, and at my own time. Do not think me unkind, for I am doing this for your own good: it would not help you if your wife were to be brought to the brink of a nervous illness. Leave it to me. Miss Mewlstone will serve us best, and she will know.” And then she took her hand from his arm, and bade him drop behind a little, that she might not be seen in the town walking with him. “Good-bye! keep up your courage. I will help you all I can,” she said, with a kindly smile, as he reluctantly obeyed her behest. She was his good angel, but he must not walk any longer in her shadow: angels do their good deeds invisibly, as Phillis hoped to do hers. He thought of this as he watched her disappearing in the distance.
Phillis walked rapidly towards the cottage. Archie, who was letting himself in at his own door, saw the girl pass, carrying her head high, and stepping lightly as though she were treading on air. “Here comes Atalanta,” he said to himself; but, though a smile came over his tired face, he made no effort 253 to arrest her. The less he saw of any of them the better, he thought, just now.
Nan looked up reproachfully as the truant entered the work-room, and Mrs. Challoner wore her gravest expression; evidently she had prepared a lecture for the occasion. Phillis looked at them both with sparkling eyes.
“Listen to me, Nan and mother. Oh, I am glad Dulce is not here, she is so young and giddy; and she might talk—No, not a word from either of you, until I have had my turn.” And then she began her story.
Nan listened with rapt speechless attention, but Mrs. Challoner gave vent to little pitying moans and exclamations of dismay.
“Oh, my child!” she kept saying, “to think of your being mixed up in such an adventure! How could you be so imprudent and daring? Mrs. Williams’s lodger—a strange man! in that outlandish cloak, too! and you walked home with him that dark night! Oh, Phillis, I shall never be at peace about you again!” and so on.
Phillis bore all this patiently, for she knew she had been incautious: and when her mother’s excitement had calmed down a little, she unfolded to them her plan.
“I must see Miss Mewlstone quite alone; and that unfinished French merino will be such a good excuse, Nan. I will take the body with me this afternoon, and beg her to let me try it on; the rest must come afterwards, but this will be the best way of getting her to myself.” And, as Nan approved of this scheme, and Mrs. Challoner did not dissent, Phillis had very soon made up her parcel, and was walking rapidly towards the White House.
As she turned in at the gates she could see a shadow on the blind in Mrs. Williams’s little parlor, and waved her hand towards it. He was watching her, she knew: she longed to go back and give him a word of encouragement and exhortation to patience; but some one, Mr. Drummond perhaps, might see her, and she dare not venture.