“Geoffrey,” she said at length in a low, timid voice I perused my book with stolid indifference.
“Geoffrey,” she repeated, “why are you angry with me without cause?”
Raising my head, I saw that her fine eyes were dimmed by tears, and almost unconsciously I reached, took her hand, and pressed it. Then Ella, rising slowly, came round and sat upon my knee.
“You see,” she whispered, with her arms around my neck, “this is how it was. Last night I said to myself,—
“This poor, dear Geoffrey—he is so busy with his country’s affairs, and works so hard—he will be away all day; therefore I will go over to call upon my aunt in Camberwell and take her a bottle of wine and some tea, for she is a great invalid and in poverty. Since my marriage I haven’t seen her, and as she is in great straits I know dear Geoffrey will not object.”
Here Ella stopped to nestle closer to me, and went on,—
“And to-day I took a cab down to Camberwell, to a dreary row of drab, mournful-looking houses, and all day long I have sat by her bedside trying to cheer her. Ah! she is so ill, and so sad. Then on my return I called at Scott’s and bought these flowers for my darling, serious old boy who has been working all day in his dreary office with its window overlooking the dismal grey quadrangle. And I am so tired, and it was not at all amusing for me without him.”
The flowers smelt so sweet in front of me; and Ella was so sweet, childlike and full of happiness, that I took her soft face between my hands, as was my habit, and kissed her.
But later that evening, on going to her room alone to fetch something for her, I noticed that her high-heeled French boots, thrown aside, as she had cast them off, were unusually muddy, although, strangely enough, it had been a dry day. I took them up, and upon examining the soles found them caked with damp clay in which were embedded some blades of grass.
I slowly descended the stairs engrossed by my own thoughts. Grass does not grow in the streets of Camberwell.