"The young man went in. I can wait." The speaker looked away from Miss Arkroyd. Her manner was not conciliatory. But even then no idea crossed Judith's mind of who she actually was. In fact, prohibitives were at every point of the compass. How could the news have reached Marianne? How could she have come so quick to Royd?
"Is it anything I can do?" This was bald civility on the face of it; almost stipulated that it should be refused. The speaker's arrested foot on the next stair waited to go up when the refusal should warrant it. But it had to wait, long enough to make its owner wonder what was coming.
"Yes!—you can, Miss Arkroyd." Judith's good breeding concealed her surprise. She stood committed, and awaited the instruction. Was this tiresome person going to give it, or be choked by it? It came at last. "You can tell me whether my husband is dying or not."
And then Judith knew that she was face to face with Marianne Challis, the woman she had injured.
Sir Murgatroyd found his wife talking with Athelstan Taylor, of course about the current events. "This is good news about Challis," said the Rector. "Lady Arkroyd tells me he has recovered consciousness."
The Baronet demurred slightly. "Ye-es. At least, he has spoken."
"And not incoherently?"
"N-no. Oh no—not incoherently." But the stress on this word had reservation in it, and her ladyship exclaimed impatiently, "Oh, my dear, you always make the worst of everything!" A pitying smile, aside to the Rector, was quite a little essay on the unreasonableness of husbands—that intractable class. Mr. Taylor looked from one to the other. It would be early to take sides, but of course the prescribed form in such a case is to help the wife to commiserate her mate's shortcomings. It was safest to endorse the lady's view, provisionally.
"We mustn't expect too much at first," said he, deprecating the crude judgment of inexperience, a quality common to all our family except ourself. "The author won't be in trim for dictating copy for some days to come, I'm afraid." He hesitated a moment, before adding, "You have kept it from him, I suppose, for the present?"