Although not remarkable for the possession of delicate tact, Mrs. Ellmother discovered that the best course she could now follow was a course of silence.
Even at the time when she had most implicitly trusted Mirabel, the fear that she might have acted hastily and harshly toward Alban had occasionally troubled Emily’s mind. The impression produced by later events had not only intensified this feeling, but had presented the motives of that true friend under an entirely new point of view. If she had been left in ignorance of the manner of her father’s death—as Alban had designed to leave her; as she would have been left, but for the treachery of Francine—how happily free she would have been from thoughts which it was now a terror to her to recall. She would have parted from Mirabel, when the visit to the pleasant country house had come to an end, remembering him as an amusing acquaintance and nothing more. He would have been spared, and she would have been spared, the shock that had so cruelly assailed them both. What had she gained by Mrs. Rook’s detestable confession? The result had been perpetual disturbance of mind provoked by self-torturing speculations on the subject of the murder. If Mirabel was innocent, who was guilty? The false wife, without pity and without shame—or the brutal husband, who looked capable of any enormity? What was her future to be? How was it all to end? In the despair of that bitter moment—seeing her devoted old servant looking at her with kind compassionate eyes—Emily’s troubled spirit sought refuge in impetuous self-betrayal; the very betrayal which she had resolved should not escape her, hardly a minute since!
She bent forward out of her corner, and suddenly drew up her veil. “Do you expect to see Mr. Alban Morris, when we get back?” she asked.
“I should like to see him, miss—if you have no objection.”
“Tell him I am ashamed of myself! and say I ask his pardon with all my heart!”
“The Lord be praised!” Mrs. Ellmother burst out—and then, when it was too late, remembered the conventional restraints appropriate to the occasion. “Gracious, what a fool I am!” she said to herself. “Beautiful weather, Miss Emily, isn’t it?” she continued, in a desperate hurry to change the subject.
Emily reclined again in her corner of the carriage. She smiled, for the first time since she had become Mrs. Delvin’s guest at the tower.