Only a shake of the head in reply. It quenches all the eagerness to hear in the three faces, each in its own degree. Aunt Constance's gives place to "Oh dear!" and solicitude. Lady Ancester's to a gasp like sudden pain, and "Oh, Sir Coupland! are you quite, quite sure?" Her daughter's to a sharp cry, or the first of one cut short, and "Oh, mamma!" Then a bitten lip, and a face shrinking from the others' view as she turns and looks out across the Park. That is Arthur's Bridge over yonder, where last evening she spoke with this man that now lies dead, and took some note of his great dark eyes in the living glory of the sunset.
As the world and sky swim about her for a moment, even she herself wonders why she should be so hard hit. A perfect stranger! A man she had never before in her life spoken to. And then, for such a moment! But the great dark eyes of the man now dead are upon her, and she does not at first hear that her mother is speaking to her.
"Gwen dear!... Gwen darling!—you hear what Sir Coupland says? We can do no good." She has to touch her daughter's arm to get her attention.
"Well!" The girl turns, and her tears are as plain on her face as its beauty. "That means go home?" says she; and then gives a sort of heart-broken sigh. "Oh dear!" Her lack of claim to grieve for this man cuts like a knife.
"We can do no good," her mother repeats. "Now, can we?"
"No, I see. Suppose we go." She turns as though to go, but either her intention hangs fire, or she only wishes her face unseen for the moment; for she pauses, saying to her mother: "There is old Stephen. Ought we not to see him—one of us?"
"Yes!" says her ladyship, decisive on reflection. "I had forgotten about old Stephen. But I can go to him. You go back!... Yes, dear, you had better go back.... What?"
"I am not going back. I want to see the body—this man's body. I want to see his face.... No; I am not a child, mamma. Let me have my way."
"If you must, darling, you must. But I cannot see what use it can be. See—here is Aunt Constance! She does not want to see it...." A confirmatory head-shake from Miss Dickenson. "Why should you?"
"Aunt Constance never spoke to him. I did. And he spoke to me. Let me go, mamma dear. Don't oppose me." Indeed, the girl seems almost feverishly anxious, quite on a sudden, to have this wish. No need for her mother to accompany her, she adds. To which her mother replies:—"I would if you wished it, dear Gwen"; whereupon Aunt Constance, perceiving in her heart an opportunity for public service tending to distinction, says so would she. Further, in view of a verdict from somebody somewhere later on, that she showed a very nice feeling on this occasion, she takes an opportunity before they reach the cottage to say to Lady Gwendolen in an important aside:—"You won't let your mother go into the room, dear. Anything of this sort tells so on her system." To which the reply is rather abrupt:—"You needn't come, either of you." So that is settled.