The noise of hoofs pattering under the porte cochère announced that the girls had come back. In a few minutes they both entered the room. The fair young things, in their beautifully-fitting habits, their complexions freshened by exercise in the morning air, their features lighted up with the buoyancy of youth hitherto untouched by sorrow, made a pathetic and striking contrast with the group they broke in upon—the father stern and irritable, his fine face ploughed into sudden furrows of care, the mother courageous and tender, with undried tears on her cheeks. Pearl spied the tears at once, and, taking a bunch of violets out of her riding-habit, she went and kissed the wet face lovingly and fastened the flowers in her mother’s breast.
“My darling! Have you had a nice ride?”
“Yes; but we had no heart to care about it. I wish you would let us stay at home with you, and not send us off to amuse ourselves while you are worried. It is not kind of her, is it, Mrs. Monteagle?”
Polly was standing at the table, holding up her habit, and looking from one to the other of them all, with an expression of awakening terror in her large, lustrous eyes.
“I don’t know what it all means,” she said. “Is it very bad? Is it going to last long? Papa, we are not babies; you ought to tell us the truth.”
“I ought, my dear; but I have not the courage to do it. Ask your mother.”
“Redacre, you are a selfish brute!” burst out Mrs. Monteagle, glaring at him.
“Oh! don’t,” cried Alice, with a look at once imploring and angry. “Of course it is my duty, but I am such a coward!” She let her head fall on Pearl’s shoulder, and sobbed aloud.
“For God’s sake, Alice, don’t give way!” cried her husband. “I can bear anything but that; I can indeed, my love. It is quite true I am a selfish brute. I ought not to have asked you to tell them. Come, now, don’t! It will all come right, if you will only cheer up and help me to bear it.” And he went over and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“Help you to bear it!” repeated Mrs. Monteagle; but she checked herself as she met Alice’s eyes uplifted in supplication through her tears.