Lady sank wearily into a chair. "Sheila should not have let you in," she said. "I was afraid that you might come here; and you know that it was wrong of you to come. You know that as well as I do."
She spoke monotonously, with pauses between the words, leaning back along the deep chair. The last few days must have been hard ones for her. She was very pale, the little blue veins in her temples distinct and clearly lined. It tore me to see her so; and for a moment I wondered if I had done well to come, and felt a wave of that uncomfortable reaction which meets one on the threshold of a test; for a moment only, then I knew that even though I tired her the more, it was a price that we must pay for her sake as well as mine. No good ever comes of half understandings.
"No, I don't know that," I said slowly. "You don't believe that I'm altogether selfish, or that I would come now, when I know that many things have distressed you, to give you any further reason for distress."
She leaned forward, one white hand raised. "Please," she said, "I am not sure—not really sure—why you have come. But I am certain of this, that you have made a mistake in coming. There's nothing on earth that you can do to help us just now—there's nothing anybody can do—there's nothing anybody can do."
"Oh, things aren't so bad as that." I knew that I was only temporizing, and raged inwardly at myself.
Lady's eyes dropped, and one hand played nervously with a loop of the chain that hung about her neck.
"I don't believe you can understand just how bad they are. The worst of it is that I can't tell you—oh, it wasn't fair of you to come to-day"—her voice broke ever so little, and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears—"I'm tired and disheartened, and I want advice and comfort—no, don't come near me—I can't tell you anything—there's nothing I can tell to anybody in the world."
I was standing before her. "No, I can't comfort you now," I said. "I'm here to ask you things, and perhaps to hurt you very much. But you mustn't think I've come carelessly. I came because I had to—because there are things I have to understand to go on living."
Her eyes were frightened, but she settled herself back as if to meet whatever blow my questioning might give. "I don't think that you are very generous to-day," she said; and her voice grew harder than I had ever heard it. "Neither shall I answer anything that I may not. But—but perhaps you are right—perhaps there are some things that you should know. Please say what you have to say and have it done."
"You told me once," I began gently, "that your name was Margaret. Was that true?"