"Gertrude will never tell you so;" but Mr. Chester shook his head. "She will never tell you so," repeated Langley in a steadier voice. "In spite of her unhappy nature Gertrude is a good woman. Harry, you always listen to me as if—as if I were your sister; do try and believe what I say this once."
"What am I to believe?"
"That it is not your fault. Gertrude says you are goodness itself to her and the child; sometimes she speaks of you both so tenderly. Why will you not go on bearing things as you have done, so patiently, so nobly, and trust that Providence will bring good out of all this evil?"
"Then you think that there is nothing that I can do for her. I half hoped that you would find out something that she wanted, some wish that she might express."
"Then I will let you know," replied Langley, with assumed cheerfulness. In reality her heart was as heavy as lead, the talk had oppressed her. Ever ready with her sympathy she had yet found it hard to comfort him. What comfort could there be in such a home—a hasty, ill-assorted marriage, defective sympathy, inequalities of temper, physical sufferings impatiently borne, the daily burthen of sickness without ameliorating circumstances, and all this patiently, nay, heroically endured. What was she to say but that he was blameless? Whose fault was it that all this had come upon him? that he was walking by her side, groaning aloud for once in the very heaviness of his spirit? What could her words be to him but meaningless truisms, that must fall flatly on his ear? Had she any comfort at all to offer him? was not such comfort placed beyond his reach and hers for ever?
Unconsciously she slackened her pace as such thoughts came to her, and in a few minutes the others joined them, and the conversation became general.
Queenie was delighted with the look of the Grange, as Mr. Chester's house was called. It was a rambling grey stone house, standing just at the head of the lake; a picturesque old archway embosomed with ivy admitted them into a place half garden, half orchard, with a low fence dividing it from the crofts; the large square hall was used as a summer sitting-room. From the inner room a tall dark-eyed woman advanced languidly to meet them, wrapped up, in spite of the summer day, in a costly Indian shawl.
"Well, Gertie, I have brought your friends," exclaimed her husband, cheerfully; "I met them half way down the lake. I hope you have not been expecting us before."
"You must have dawdled on your way then," returned Mrs. Chester fretfully, "for I have been waiting for at least an hour, until I thought I should have been too nervous to receive them; but that is the way when you get with Langley, Harry, you never remember poor me."
"I am sure we walked here straight enough," replied Mr. Chester hastily; but Langley, with a sweet look, stopped him.