"Am I?" said Judith. "So much the better. Perhaps it will make you feel as if I could help you."
"You are not like her to-day. Your eyes are so sad and strange." Judith tried to smile. "Your brother, Mr. Herbert, is more like her. I noticed it when he was here last. She had just that bright, happy look."
"I don't remember that," Judith answered. (One recollected the school-girl, and one the wife.)
"And that sweet smile: Mr. Herbert has that too. One could see how good she was. But I didn't mean to talk about that. There is something—I sha'n't be easy till I have told some one."
"Tell me, my dear," said Judith.
The schoolmistress looked anxiously round: "I may be mistaken—I hope I am—but do you know, dear, I doubt I'm not quite so wakeful as I ought to be. You wouldn't notice it, of course, because it is when I am alone or as good as alone. But sometimes—just now and then, you know—when I have been with the girls while they took their lessons from the masters, the time has seemed to go so very fast. I should really have thought they hadn't drawn a line when the drawing-master has said, 'That will do for to-day, young ladies,' and none of them seemed surprised. And once or twice I really haven't been quite sure what they have been practising with Mr. Herbert. But music is so very soothing, isn't it?"
Judith held her breath in terror. And yet would it not be better if that horrible thought came to Miss Crawford too? If others attacked him his sister might defend. Nevertheless, she drew a long sigh of relief when the old lady went on, as if confessing a crime of far deeper dye: "And in church—it isn't easy to keep awake sometimes, one has heard the service so often, and the sermons seem so very much alike—suppose some unprincipled young man—"
"Dear Miss Crawford, no one can wonder if you are drowsy now and then. You are always so busy it is only natural."
"But it isn't right. And," with the quick tears gathering in her eyes, "I ought to have owned it before. Only, I have tried so hard to keep awake!"
"I know you have."