As she stood in the middle of the floor, thinking these thoughts, the shadow of a bird flitted across the patch of sunshine that lay within the doorway. It startled her, and she looked up, just as Lady Betty, swinging her hat by its strings, and humming a gay air, appeared on the threshold. The girl hung an instant as in doubt, and then, whether she espied Sophia standing in the shadow and did not want to meet her, or she changed her mind for another reason, she turned and left the doorway empty.
The sight was too much for Sophia's composure. That airy, laughing figure--youthful, almost infantine--poised in sunshine--that and her own brooding face, seen lately in the glass, suggested a comparison that filled her heart to bursting. She crept to the oak side table that stood in the bayed recess behind the door, and leaning her arms upon it, hid her face in them. She did not weep, but from time to time she shivered, as if the June air chilled her.
She had sat in this position some minutes when a faint sound roused her. Ashamed of being found in that posture, she looked up, and saw Lady Betty in the act of crossing the hall on tip-toe. Apparently the girl had just entered from the terrace and thought herself alone; for when she reached the middle of the floor, she stood weighing a letter in her hand, as if she doubted what to do with it. Her eyes travelled slowly from the long oak table to an almoner; and thence to a chest that stood beside the inner door. In the end she chose the chest, and, gliding to the door, placed the letter on it, arranging its position with peculiar care. Then she turned to go out again by the terrace door, but had not taken two steps before her eyes met Sophia's. She uttered a low cry, and stood, arrested.
Sophia did not speak, but she rose, crossed the hall, and as the other, with a rapid movement, recovered the letter from the chest, she extended her hand for it.
"Give it to me," she said.
For a moment Lady Betty confronted her, holding the letter hidden. Then, whether Sophia's pale set face cowed her, or she really had no choice, she held out the letter. "It is for you," she faltered. "But----"
"But," Sophia answered, taking her up with quiet scorn, "I was not to know the bearer! I am obliged to you."
Again for a moment the two women looked at one another. And Lady Betty's face grew slowly scarlet. "You have his confidence," Sophia continued in the same tone. "It's fitting you wait, miss, and take the answer."
"But he's gone," Betty stammered.
"Then I do not think you will take the answer!" Sophia retorted. "But you will wait, nevertheless! You will wait my pleasure." She broke the seal as she spoke, and began to read the contents of the note. They were short. A moment and she crumpled the paper in her hand and dropped it on the floor. "A very proper letter," she said with a sneer. "There's no fault to be found with it, I am sure. He is my affectionate husband, I can be no less than his dutiful wife. 'Tis no part of a dutiful wife to find fault with her husband's letter, I suppose."