For many days the duke lay in state in his ancestral hall; from far and near crowds came to gaze on the gorgeously fitted up apartment, hung with emblazoned hatchments, encircled round with all the trappings of woe. Eugene had quitted the house at the time of the duke's decease, in company with the foreigners his sister had commanded to depart. He reappeared on the day of the funeral, and requested to speak with his mother. To his surprise he found her haggard and worn, and traces of excessive weeping were on her countenance. She greeted him kindly, made him sit down beside her, took his hand in hers and held it, but wept instead of speaking. Eugene was puzzled and alarmed, for all agitation was unusual with his mother. They were alone together, yet the silence was not broken. After awhile a servant came to say that the procession was forming for the funeral, he supposing that Eugene came expressly to attend it.
"Shall I go, mother?" said Eugene, but his mother held him fast, and shook her head.
"It would be better not," she said; "they might be bitter even on a day like this. No, Eugene, do not see your father yet. Go home, I will be there in a few days. We will talk matters over, and all will be right again. Your father and Hester will remain a short time with Adelaide. But you and I will go home. Do not stay here now, but meet me tomorrow at the post-house ten miles from this. I will be there at ten o'clock. I will stop the carriage for you to ride home with me."
Eugene wonderingly assented; and as she seemed anxious to get him out of the house, he left as soon as the vast cortege had disappeared.
Crowds of nobility, crowds of gentry, crowds of tenantry accompanied the corpse as it was borne to the family vault. A collation was afterward spread for the guests; they partook of it, went home, and in less than a month were eager in paying court to a new duke, and the late one was to them as though he had never been.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MOTHER AND SON.
It was a strange and certainly not a very pleasant feeling to Eugene to find himself thus secretly, as it were, in his mothers company. Her agitation, however, had subsided. During the journey she was even cheerful at times, and she made not the slightest allusion to the subject which had disturbed her. On their arrival at home she busied herself more than had ever been her wont in domestic and tenantry affairs, and kept Eugene occupied in many ways. There was, he fancied, a tenderness in her intercourse with him that he had rarely observed before, though she had ever been to him a most loving mother. Some weeks passed, and then a letter came which made Mrs. Godfrey turn pale as she read it. Eugene, alarmed, rose and placed himself beside her. "Is anything the matter, dearest mother?" he asked.
"Yes, no, yes! that is, they are coming home."
"And who are they who cause you this alarm?"
"Your father and Hester."