"The talk began about your health and altered looks, my lady. 'Don't you think your mistress is looking ill?' said he. 'A little,' I said. 'But her body is not so ill as her heart, if you ask me,' said I."
"You never said that, Price?"
"Well, I could not help saying it if I thought so, could I?"
"And what did he say?"
"He didn't say anything then, my lady, but when I said, 'You see, sir, my lady is tied to a husband she doesn't love,' he said, 'How can she, poor thing? 'Worse than that,' I said, 'her husband loves another woman.' 'The fool! Where does he keep his eyes?' said he. 'Worse still,' said I, 'he flaunts his infidelities in her very face.' 'The brute!' he said, and his face looked so fierce that you would have thought he wanted to take his lordship by the throat and choke him. 'Why doesn't she leave the man?' said he. 'That's what I say, sir, but I think it's her religion,' I said. 'Then God help her, for there's no remedy for that,' said he. And then seeing him so down I said, 'But we women are always ruled by our hearts in the long run.' 'Do you think so?' said he. 'I'm sure of it,' said I, 'only we must have somebody to help us,' I said. 'There's her father,' said he. 'A father is of no use in a case like this,' I said, 'especially such a one as my lady's is, according to all reports. No,' said I, 'it must be somebody else—somebody who cares enough for a woman to risk everything for her, and just take her and make her do what's best for herself whether she likes it or not. Now if somebody like that were to come to my lady, and get her out of her trouble,' I said. . . . 'Somebody will,' said he. 'Make your mind easy about that. Somebody will,' he said, and then he went on walking to and fro."
Price told this story as if she thought she was bringing me the gladdest of glad tidings; but the idea that Martin had come back into my life to master me, to take possession of me, to claim me as his own (just as he did when I was a child) and thereby compel me to do what I had promised his mother and Father Dan not to do—this was terrifying.
But there was a secret joy in it too, and every woman will know what I mean if I say that my heart was beating high with the fierce delight of belonging to somebody when I returned to the boudoir where Martin was waiting to sit down to dinner.
Then came a great surprise.
Martin was standing with his back to the fire-place, and I saw in a moment that the few hours which had intervened had changed him as much as they had changed me.
"Helloa! Better, aren't we?" he cried, but he was now cold, almost distant, and even his hearty voice seemed to have sunk to a kind of nervous treble.