She took Lydia to her own room, for the greater convenience of her experiments, and from that moment she did not allow her to be alone; she scarcely allowed her to be silent; she made her talk, she kept her in movement. At dinner she permitted no lapse. “Henshaw,” she said, “Lydia has been telling me about a storm they had just before they reached Gibraltar. I wish you would tell her of the typhoon you were in when you first went out to India.” Her husband obeyed; and then recurring to the days of his civil employment in India, he told stories of tiger-hunts, and of the Sepoy mutiny. Mrs. Erwin would not let them sit very long at table. After dinner she asked Lydia to sing, and she suffered her to sing all the American songs her uncle asked for. At eight o'clock she said with a knowing little look at Lydia, which included a sub-wink for her husband, “You may go to your café alone, this evening, Henshaw. Lydia and I are going to stay at home and talk South Bradfield gossip. I've hardly had a moment with her yet.” But when he was gone, she took Lydia to her own room again, and showed her all her jewelry, and passed the time in making changes in the girl's toilette.
It was like the heroic endeavor of the arctic voyager who feels the deadly chill in his own veins, and keeps himself alive by rousing his comrade from the torpor stealing over him. They saw in each other's eyes that if they yielded a moment to the doubt in their hearts they were lost.
At ten o'clock Mrs. Erwin said abruptly, “Go to bed, Lydia!” Then the girl broke down, and abandoned herself in a storm of tears. “Don't cry, dear, don't cry,” pleaded her aunt. “He will be here in the morning, I know he will. He has been delayed.”
“No, he's not coming,” said Lydia, through her sobs.
“Something has happened,” urged Mrs. Erwin.
“No,” said Lydia, as before. Her tears ceased as suddenly as they had come. She lifted her head, and drying her eyes looked into her aunt's face. “Are you ashamed of me?” she asked hoarsely.
“Ashamed of you? Oh, poor child—”
“I can't pretend anything. If I had never told you about it at all, I could have kept it back till I died. But now—But you will never hear me speak of it again. It's over.” She took up her candle, and stiffly suffering the compassionate embrace with which her aunt clung to her, she walked across the great hall in the vain splendor in which she had been adorned, and shut the door behind her.