Marie Louise felt a little relieved, but still at sea. When Widdicombe asked what message he should take back her curiosity led her to brave her fate and know the worst:
“Tell him to come to my house at any time this afternoon––no, not before five. I have some shopping to do, and the servants to engage.”
She did not ask Polly to go with her, and Polly took the hint conveyed in Marie Louise’s remark as they left the dining-room, “I’ve a little telephoning to do.”
Polly went her way, and Marie Louise made a pretext of telephoning.
Major Widdicombe did not see Jake Nuddle as he went down the steps, for the reason that Jake saw him first and drew his wife aside. He wondered what had become of Marie Louise.
Jake and his wife hung about nonplussed for a few minutes, till Marie Louise came out. She had waited only to make sure that Tom and Polly got away. When she came down the steps she cast a casual glance at Jake and her sister, who came toward her eagerly. But she assumed that they were looking at some one else, for they meant nothing to her eyes.
She had indeed never seen this sister before. The sister who waddled toward her was not the sister she had left in Wakefield years before. That sister was young and lean and a maid. Marriage and hard work and children had swaddled this sister in bundles of strange flesh and drawn the face in new lines.
Marie Louise turned her back on her, but heard across her shoulder the poignant call:
“Mamise!”