“I never read them in the morning. In the evening I do—advertisements and everything. Tell me the news.”
“Perhaps it would be as well for you not to drive to-day. . . . It would not look well for one’s future wife to be seen even while there is any uncertainty. It would look as if you had no respect for the world’s arrangements. I will stay here with you. You may do as you like, but it is as well to respect etiquette.”
“What are you talking about? Tell me. Who is your future wife? Is she a nun?”
Sir Ralph handed her the Morning Post.
“Read that.”
“ ‘Yacht gone down of Mr. Blakeley’s,’ ” she read. “Well? What has that to do with me? ‘All hands lost, and the names of the passengers.’ ”
“Read them! Read them!” he said.
And she read:
“Blakeley and his wife—together—lucky souls. Mrs. Grey, I never liked her. John Colquhoun—Herbert!—Herbert! What!” she exclaimed. “Jack—it can’t be—is it true? Jack. . . . God! it is cruel, cruel, and I have waited—waited, believing he would come—believing, and he was only cruising about with Mrs. Grey. Go away,” she said, with sudden energy and anger. “Go now. I hate you, hate you, hate you! It is for you that he thinks I have given him up; fool—as if I would or could. Now, it is forever—why is it? Why is it? I must hurt something!” She picked up a yellow vase full of sweet peas, and threw it away from her. It crashed against the brass fender. “Jack loathed that vase, now it is broken—but the sweet peas are spilt. Help me to pick up the flowers—do help me. They look so red—they are bruised and half-dead—they seem human—they suffer. They are Jack’s favourite flower. Go! go—why don’t you go?”
“I cannot bear to leave you. Lily, think of me—a little—think of—”