The sofa was near Mrs. Linley. She sank on it, overpowered by the utter destruction of the hopes that she had founded on the separation of Herbert and the governess. Sydney Westerfield was still in possession of her husband’s heart!
Her mother was surely the right person to say a word of comfort to her. Randal made the suggestion—with the worst possible result. Mrs. Presty had not forgotten that she had been told—at her age, in her position as the widow of a Cabinet Minister—to hold her tongue. “Your brother has insulted me,” she said to Randal. He was weak enough to attempt to make an explanation. “I was speaking of my brother’s wife,” he said. “Your brother’s wife has allowed me to be insulted.” Having received that reply, Randal could only wonder. This woman went to church every Sunday, and kept a New Testament, bound in excellent taste, on her toilet-table! The occasion suggested reflection on the system which produces average Christians at the present time. Nothing more was said by Mrs. Presty; Mrs. Linley remained absorbed in her own bitter thoughts. In silence they waited for the return of the carriage, and the appearance of the governess.
Chapter XVIII. The Nursemaid.
Pale, worn, haggard with anxiety, Sydney Westerfield entered the room, and looked once more on the faces which she had resigned herself never to see again. She appeared to be hardly conscious of the kind reception which did its best to set her at her ease.
“Am I in time?” were the first words that escaped her on entering the room. Reassured by the answer, she turned back to the door, eager to hurry upstairs to Kitty’s bedside.
Mrs. Linley’s gentle hand detained her.
The doctor had left certain instructions, warning the mother to guard against any accident that might remind Kitty of the day on which Sydney had left her. At the time of that bitter parting, the child had seen her governess in the same walking-dress which she wore now. Mrs. Linley removed the hat and cloak, and laid them on a chair.
“There is one other precaution which we must observe,” she said; “I must ask you to wait in my room until I find that you may show yourself safely. Now come with me.”
Mrs. Presty followed them, and begged earnestly for leave to wait the result of the momentous experiment, at the door of Kitty’s bedroom. Her self-asserting manner had vanished; she was quiet, she was even humble. While the last chance for the child’s life was fast becoming a matter of minutes only, the grandmother’s better nature showed itself on the surface. Randal opened the door for them as the three went out together. He was in that state of maddening anxiety about his poor little niece in which men of his imaginative temperament become morbid, and say strangely inappropriate things. In the same breath with which he implored his sister-in-law to let him hear what had happened, without an instant of delay, he startled Mrs. Presty by one of his familiar remarks on the inconsistencies in her character. “You disagreeable old woman,” he whispered, as she passed him, “you have got a heart, after all.”