Volume Three – Chapter Eight.
Gertrude Takes Sanctuary
Valentine Vidler and Salome his wife chirped about the gloomy house in Wimpole Street like a pair of exceedingly happy crickets. Vidler used to kiss Mrs V. and say she was a “dear little woman,” and Mrs V. would always, when they were downstairs amongst the shining coppers and tins, call Vidler “love.” They were quaint to look at, but their blood circulated just as did that of other specimens of humanity; their nerves grew tense or slack in the same way; and in their fashion they thoroughly enjoyed life.
Certainly no children were born unto them, a fact due, perhaps, to the absence of light; but somehow the little couple were very happy without, and so their life glided on as they placidly thought of other people’s troubles, talked of how the Captain took this or that, wondered when Sir Humphrey would come and see him again; if Lady Millet would ever get over the snubbing she had had, for wanting to interfere during a visit, and let in light, which she declared she could not exist without, and Captain Millet had told her she could get plenty out of doors.
Dull as the house seemed, it was never dull to Salome, with her dusting, cleaning, cooking, and cutting-up little squares and diamonds of cotton print for her master’s needle, and afterwards lining and quilting the counterpanes, which were in great request for charitable affairs and fancy bazaars.
The kitchen at Wimpole Street was very cosy in its way – a good fire always burned in the glistening grate, a cricket or two chirped in warm corners; there was a very white hearthstone, a very bright steel fender, and a very thick warm hearthrug, composed of cloth shreds, in front of the little round table drawn up pretty close; for absence of light meant apparently absence of heat.
The tea-things were out, it being eight o’clock; the Captain’s dinner over, Renée seated by the panel reading to him in a low voice, and the Vidlers’ duties done for the day. Hence, then, they had their tea punctually at eight o’clock, making it their supper as well.
Vidler was busy, with a white napkin spread over his knees, making toast, which Mrs V. buttered liberally, and then placed round after round upon the plate, which just fitted the steel disc in the fender.
The kettle was sending out its column of steam, the hot toast looked buttery and brown, and a fragrant scent arose from the teapot, the infusion being strong and good, consequent upon the Captain’s having one cup directly after his dinner, and the pot being kept afterwards to draw.
The meal over and the tea-things washed up – Salome doing the washing, finishing off with that special rinse round of the tray with hot water and the pouring out of the rinsings at one corner, just as a photographer used to cover his plate with collodion – the table was cleared, aprons folded and put away by Vidler in the dresser drawer, while his wife brushed up the hearth, and then came the event of the day – that is to say, the work being done, came the play.
It was the Vidlers’ sole amusement, and it was entered into with a kind of solemn unction in accordance with the gloom of the place. Some learned people would have been of opinion that a light gymnastic kind of sport would have been that most suited for such a life as the Vidlers led, and would have liked to see hooks in the ceiling, and Valentine and his little wife swinging by ropes and turning head over heels on bars for the bringing into play of unused muscles. They might have introduced, too, that pleasing occupation of turning one’s self into a human quintain, with a couple of clubs swung round and round over the head to the great endangerment of the rows of plates and tureens upon the dresser, but they would have been wrong: the stairs gave both an abundance of gymnastic exercise, and their ordinary work brought their other muscles into play. Hence, then, they disported themselves over a pleasant pastime which combined skill, the elements of chance, and mental and arithmetical calculation – the Vidlers’ pastime was cribbage.
The cards taken from the box which opened out into a board were tolerably clean, though faded, it being Salome’s custom to rub them once a week with bread-crumbs, and upon the couple taking their places, with a vast amount of solemnity, spectacles were mounted, and the game began.
Old-fashioned six-card cribbage was their favourite, because, as Vidler said, he didn’t care twopence for a game where there wasn’t plenty of pegging; so the cards were cut. Salome won the deal; they were cut again, and she began.
It was a sight to see Salome deal the cards. Had they been hundred-pound notes she could not have been more particular; wetting her thumb, and taking the greatest care she could to deliver only one at a time, while Vidler looked calmly on, then took up his, smiled at them, selected two for the crib, frowned over them, counted how many he should hold, tried another way, seemed satisfied, and then as he threw out, having thoroughly instructed his partner – now his opponent – in all the technicalities and time-honoured sayings of the game, he informed Salome that he had contrived a “regular bilk.”
“Have you?” said Salome, nodding and throwing out her own couple. “Cut up.”
Vidler “cut up,” and Salome took the card upon the top, exclaimed “Two for his heels,” scored them, and Vidler frowned, for his “bilk” accorded wonderfully well with the turned-up card. “Master didn’t seem to relish that cutlet,” said Vidler, playing first – “six.”
“No,” said Salome, “he has been too much bothered lately – fifteen,” and she scored a second “two.”
“More trouble coming,” said Vidler – “twenty-two.”
“And nine’s a screw,” said Salome seriously, taking another couple for thirty-one.
Then the played cards were solemnly turned down and the game went on.
“Eight,” said Vidler. “How ill Miss Renée looks!”
“Fourteen,” said Salome, playing a six. “Yes, poor girl! she’s brought her pigs to a bad market.”
“Got you this time,” said Vidler, smiling, as he played an ace – “fifteen” – and scored his two.
“Twenty,” said Salome; and so the game went on, the little woman playing with all the serious precision of an old stager, calling thirty-one “eleven,” informing Vidler when she was well ahead that it was “all Leadenhall Street to a China orange,” and proving herself such an adept that the little man was thoroughly beaten.
“Better luck next time,” said Vidler, giving the Cards a good shuffle; and then the pair stopped to listen, for faint and low, like a melody from another land, came the sad sweet voice of Renée, singing that wonderful old Irish air, “Grammachree,” putting an end to the play, for the couple sat and listened, Vidler nodding his head gently, and waving a card to the melancholy cadence till it ended, when the game once more began.
Pop!
“Bless us and save us?” cried Salome, dropping her Cribbage-peg as she was in the act of scoring three for a run; “is it a purse or a coffin?”
Vidler rose, and, taking the tongs, carefully picked up the cinder which had flown from the fire, and was now making an unpleasant savour of burning woollen fabric to arise from the hearthrug. He laid it solemnly upon the table to cool, and then it was shaken by Salome, but gave forth no answering tinkle.
“It isn’t a purse,” she said, holding it to the light. “It’s a coffin!”
She handed the little hollow bubble of cindery coal-tar to her husband, and he laid it down, took off and wiped his perfectly clean spectacles, and replaced them before carefully examining the portent by the light.
“It’s a coffin for somebody,” he said solemnly; and then, as he carefully cremated the cinder in the most glowing portion of the fire, the couple sighed, resumed their places, and sat listening as the voice of Renée singing to Captain Millet once more came down to where they sat.
It was “Ye banks and braes” this time, and when the pathetic old air was ended Salome sighed.
“Ah, poor dear, yes – ‘My false lu-huv has plu-ucked the ro-az, and le-heft the the – horn be-hi-hind with me,’” said and sang Salome, in a little piping plaintive voice. “I hope it isn’t for her!”
“It may mean only trouble,” said Vidler, with his head on one side. “I have known coffins pop out of the fire and no one die.”
“Oh dear no,” said Salome. “There’s not a minute passes but someone dies.”
“No,” said Vidler slowly, as if the great problem propounded required much consideration; “but so long as it isn’t anyone here, why, it don’t matter.”
“Quite so much,” said Salome correctively. “Let me see; it was three for a run. I shall beat you this time. You want fourteen.”
“Yes,” said Vidler, chuckling; “but it’s my first show. You want sixteen.”
“Yes,” said Salome, pegging one for a “go,” “but I’ve got hand and crib. Now then.”
“Sixteen,” said Vidler triumphantly, as he threw down his cards and stuck a peg in the winning hole.
“Think of that now,” said Salome, as she gathered up the cards for what she called a good shuffle, which was performed by dividing the pack in two equal portions and holding them as if about to build a card house, allowing them to fall alternately one over the other. Then they were knocked together hard and square, and handed to Vidler, who gave them what he termed “a Canterbury poke,” which consisted in rapidly thrusting his forefinger right to the centre of the pack and driving out a large portion of the cards, which were afterwards placed upon the top. Then the pack was cut once more, and game after game followed till suddenly there was a loud ring at the bell.
“What was that?” cried Salome.
“The coffin,” said Vidler solemnly.
“Bless us and save us, man, don’t look like that!” cried Salome; “it turns me cold all down my back;” and then, with a shiver, and very wide-open eyes, she followed her little lord up to the front door, where Huish’s maid was waiting with a note and a cab to take Renée away.
This caused a little flutter upstairs, and a greater one down, where Jane, with a few additions of her own, related the arrest of her master.
“It was trouble, then, and not death,” said Vidler sagely to his wife, who then had to answer the bell, and assist Renée, who, after a short conference with Captain Millet, dressed and hurried off to join her sister.
“Good-bye, my dear,” said the Captain, sighing. “I shall not go to bed. You may return.”
Renée was seen into the cab, and the Vidlers, upon receiving an intimation from their master, made up the kitchen fire and sat before it, as if cooking, to see if Mrs Morrison came back, which she did in about an hour, on finding from the cook that Huish had been and taken her sister away, the same personage informing her that Sir Humphrey and Mr Millet had not returned.
Renée hesitated for a time as to whether she should stay or go to Grosvenor Square to make inquiries; but this last she was averse to doing; and, with a full conviction upon her that Huish and Gertrude would be sure to call at Wimpole Street, even if she had not already missed them, she hurried back.
“They may come yet,” said Captain Millet quietly. “We will wait and see.”
Fresh candles were brought, and tea was made, of which no one partook, and then the occupants of the gloomy house waited hour after hour in full faith of some news coming during the night, with the consequence that everyone was on the alert when the bell rang about four o’clock.
Vidler hastened up to open the door, and uttered a cry of dismay which brought down Renée, for Gertrude Huish fell forward fainting into his arms, to lie where she was carried hour after hour, now awakening to a wild hysterical fit, now sinking back into semi-unconsciousness, and always unable to respond to the eager queries, till at last she started up wildly, and on recognising her sister, flung her arms round her neck, exclaiming:
“Oh, Ren, Ren! is there no more happiness on earth? My poor heart’s broken: I shall die?”
Volume Three – Chapter Nine.
Lady Henry Grows Calm
“Can you not take me into your confidence, Marie?” said Lord Henry, on meeting his wife at the breakfast-table the morning after her sister’s revelation.
She looked at him wildly for a few moments, her large eyes encircled with dark rings, and the traces of terrible emotion in her blanched face.
She had been in a state of mental agony the night through, refusing to retire, and passing much of the time in pacing up and down the room. But towards morning she had grown calmer. Her mental pain was somewhat dulled, and as she perceived the terrible agitation into which she had plunged her husband, she began to feel a kind of remorse and pity for him as well as for herself.
At first she had been half maddened, for she did not for a moment doubt Clotilde’s words. Everything was only too suggestive, and as she felt that she had hastily condemned Marcus Glen, who had been all that was chivalrous and true, there were moments when she told herself that she could not live.
It was so horrible. She had loved Marcus Glen with all the strong passion of her nature. For his sake she would have borne poverty and privation, and been truly happy, believing thoroughly in his love; but when, in place of finding him the true, honest gentleman she had trusted, she believed that he was base, her love had turned to hatred, and she had fled, telling herself that she had nothing to hope for now, and that if she could make others happy she need expect no more.
Awakening at last, after a night of bitter suffering, to the anguish of her husband, she had made a brave effort over self, and turned to him as her refuge from the suffering to which she was reduced.
She clung to him, praying for help and strength to cast out the image of Marcus Glen from her heart and at last she felt that she had the strength, and told herself that she would consider the past as dead.
But even as she lay there with her husband’s hands pressed to her forehead, the thought would come that she ought to tell Marcus Glen that she knew the truth.
A paroxysm of agony followed this thought. What avail would it be now? She felt that he would curse her for her want of faith in him, and, think of it all as she would, she could only come to the conclusion that, in her haste and want of trust in him she loved, she had blasted her future, and must bear it to the end.
Daybreak at last; and with the sun came thoughts of her position, and the necessity for making some effort – an effort which she was now too weak to essay. But at last she rose, and as the time wore on begged Lord Henry to leave her, meeting him again a couple of hours later at breakfast, apparently calm, but with a tempest raging in her breast.
He uttered no word of reproach, but was tenderness itself, and the tears stole more than once down his furrowed cheeks; and when at last he appealed to her as her husband, she broke down, threw herself sobbing upon his breast, and begged him to spare her.
“I will not say another word,” he replied gently. “My wish is to make you happy in my poor way, and I only pressed you for your confidence, so that I might help you to be more at rest.”
“I don’t like to have secrets from you,” she whispered; “dear husband!”
He held her more tightly to his breast as she called him this, and she uttered a low sigh of relief, for it was as though he told her of his trust. It gave her strength to proceed, and she went on:
“My sister quarrelled with me, and said such bitter things that I could not bear them. She brought up the scene upon that terrible night of which you were a witness.”
“Let it be buried with the past,” said Lord Henry gravely. “It should never have been revived, and I see now but too plainly that I was to blame in accepting the invitation.”
“Never accept one again; I could not bear it. Clotilde’s path and mine must be separate through life. I could not meet her now.”
“Are you not too hard upon your sister?”
“Hard?” cried Marie. “Oh no! You do not know all,” she was about to say, but she refrained, and went on: “Clotilde has altered since her marriage. I think we should be happier apart. Help me in this, dear husband. It would be better so.”
He raised her face, and gazed tenderly into her wild eyes, as he said:
“Your happiness is my care, Marie, my child. I promised to try and make your home one of rest and peace. Ask me what you will, and it shall be done.”
“Then you will keep our lives separate from my sister’s,” she cried eagerly.
“If you asked me my wishes on the subject,” he said quietly, and he smiled as he spoke. “I should gladly cut myself off from all connection with Mr Elbraham and his wife. But we have our social duties to perform, Marie, even if they are against our taste.”
“Duties!” cried Marie excitedly; “it is my duty to avoid my sister, yours to keep us apart. Believe me, this is for the best.”
“I gladly follow out your wishes, my child,” said Lord Henry, “and I will ask you no more questions if you will try to let this cloud go by.”
“Yes, yes,” she cried eagerly, “it is gone;” and she flung her arms round his neck, and sobbed hysterically upon his breast.
“There,” she cried with a piteous smile, for the face of Marcus Glen seemed to haunt her still. “Now I am quite calm, and I have a petition to make.”
“What is it?” he said with a sigh of relief, and the lines in his face grew less deep.
“I want you to let me ask my cousin Ruth to come and stay with me – to be like a companion to me. Don’t think,” she hastened to add, “that I am dull and want companions, but I have a double object to perform.”
“Yes?” he said inquiringly.
“I wish – I want to withdraw her from Clotilde’s influence.”
“A good and worthy desire, my child,” he said, bowing his approval. “I like Ruth very, very much. She is sweet, and natural, and true.”
“She is,” cried Marie eagerly.
“And your other object?”
“I wish to watch over her, and to try and influence her future. She would be happier with me, and if she is to marry I should like hers to be a worthy choice.”
“Of course, yes, you are quite right; and what do you say – shall we fetch her here?”
“Yes,” cried Marie eagerly.
“When? To-day?”
“Yes – no,” replied Marie. “I am not strong enough; I am not calm enough to-day. I will write and ask her to be ready to-morrow, and, if you will do it, let us drive down and fetch her.”
Lord Henry Moorpark sighed with relief and pleasure, and soon after, fighting bravely to crush down her own agony of heart, Marie wrote a note to ask her aunts’ permission for Ruth to come, and another to request her to be ready – and all the time with an intensity of sorrow striving with her wild and passionate love. She seemed to see in Ruth one who was to save her from the commission of a crime from which she shrank in horror. Ruth would be her protector. Ruth should be always with her, and she would learn from her sweet, innocent young heart how to school her own.
The visit of Ruth to her cousin in Saint James’s Square commenced during a temporary absence of Mr Paul Montaigne from his apartments at Teddington.
Business had taken him to London, where he stayed a week, at the end of which time he walked through the chestnut avenue quietly, as of old, paused by the Diana pool to cast a few crumbs to the fishes, and then continued his walk, with his hands behind him, to the Palace, where he was met by Joseph, at whom he smiled benignantly, and was shown in to where the honourable sisters were seated at their embroidery. The hands of the fair Isabella were a little more tremulous than was their wont, consequent upon an encounter during a walk, when she and her sister had met Glen.
The visitor was received most warmly, and heard glowing accounts of the happiness and brilliant establishments of the dear children.
“Yes,” he said blandly, “they must be happy. I had some thought of calling upon them when in town, but I bethought me that they must be fully occupied with their friends and the management of their homes, and that my visit, at present, might seem out of place.”
“I think it would have been a duty properly fulfilled – what do you say, sister?” exclaimed the Honourable Philippa.
“I think it would have been a duty and a kindness,” said the Honourable Isabella, making a couple of false stitches before she found out her mistake.
“I have been remiss,” said Montaigne, with a bland smile, as he bent his head. “How day by day one awakens more and more to the fact that human nature is far from perfect!”
“Ah, indeed!” said the Honourable Philippa.
“Yes, indeed!” said the Honourable Isabella, with a lively recollection of her thoughts regarding Marcus Glen.
“I must try and remedy my failing, ladies, at my next visit to town. But how is the last lamb in this peaceful fold – Ruth?”
He uttered this inquiry with his eyes half-closed, and a calm, sweet smile played the while about his lips till he heard the Honourable Philippa’s reply:
“Oh, she is in town! Lord and Lady Henry came down in the barouche the day before yesterday, and fetched her up to stay with them for some time.”
The warm, pleasant look in Paul Montaigne’s face changed to one of a grim cold grey; the smile disappeared, his lips tightened, and he seemed for the moment to have grown old and careworn. Even his voice changed, and sounded hard and harsh as he said quickly:
“Indeed? I did not know.”
“Marie thought it would be a pleasant change for her, and companionable as well, and dear Lady Littletown, who was calling at the time, said it was the best thing we could do. So she is gone.”
“It would be a most pleasant change.”
“And, of course, you know, dear Mr Montaigne, Ruth is no longer a child, and – er – you understand.”
“Yes, of course,” said Montaigne; who, however, recalled to mind that Ruth was quite a child until her cousins were married.
At that idea of seeing company and the following suggestion of marriage the strange pallor became more evident in Montaigne’s countenance, and in spite of his forced smile and self-control, he kept passing his dry tongue over his parched lips, and unconsciously drew in his breath as if he were suffering from thirst.
He grew worse as the conversation continued to take the ugly turn, to him, of marriage. For, said the Honourable Philippa:
“Lady Littletown informs us that a marriage is on the tapis between Mr Arthur Litton, a friend of Mr Elbraham, and our dear Lady Anna Maria Morton.”
“I congratulate Lady Anna Maria, I am sure,” said Montaigne huskily; and as he glanced at the Honourable Isabella that lady trembled more than usual, and believed that Montaigne was reading her heart, and mentally asking her whether she would ever be married to Marcus Glen.
Mr Montaigne refused to stay to lunch. He had so many little things to attend to consequent upon the business that had called him to London; in fact, even now he was only down for a few hours, having come to seek some papers. These he had found, and he was going back to town at once. Business was very tiresome, he said.
The honourable sisters agreed that it was, and Mr Montaigne took his leave with reverent, affectionate grace, and passed out into the gardens, along whose broad gravel paths he walked slowly in his customary way – bland, sweet, and introspective with his half-closed eyes. But though he did not increase his pace in obedience to his rapidly-beating pulse, a close observer would have noticed that he did not stop to feed the fishes on his way back to Teddington, while his landlady was surprised at the hurried way in which he again took his departure.
The change from Hampton Court to Saint James’s was delightful to Ruth, who only felt one drawback to the pleasure of her visit – that she could not expect to see Marcus Glen and Richard Millet during her walks.
“I wonder whether she thinks him so guilty as she did,” mused Ruth; and these musings were continued one evening after dinner, when she was seated at work in Lord Henry’s drawing-room, with Marie, who was very pale, close at hand; Lord Henry being, according to custom, seated over his wine – a pleasant, old-fashioned fiction, wherein a decanter of excellent old port was placed before him every evening, of which he drank one glass only, and then went to sleep till the butler announced tea.
Just in the midst of her thoughts respecting Marcus Glen, and as if some electric mental chord of sympathy existed between them, Marie said, in a quiet, rather forced voice:
“Have you seen Captain Glen lately, Ruthy?”
It cost Marie a tremendous effort to say those words calmly. And then that terrible pang of jealousy shot through her breast once more as she saw the crimson blood flush into Ruth’s cheeks and rise above her brows.
Poor Ruth faltered, and looked as guilty as if she had been discovered in some offence, as she replied:
“Yes, only a few days ago. He spoke to us in the Gardens. I was walking with my aunts.”
Marie felt relieved. He could not have said much to Ruth if her aunts were by, and she sighed with content, but only to take herself angrily to task once more, and strive to spur herself onward to her duty. It was in this disposition, then, that she said quietly:
“I thought it right to say to you, Ruthy, that I think you were correct about – about Captain Glen.”
“That he was not guilty, as you imagined?” cried Ruth eagerly.
Marie bowed her head, and she felt a strange constriction of the heart on seeing the bright animation in Ruth’s countenance – a suggestion of the pain that she was in future to feel; but she mastered her emotion, and Ruth went on:
“I am so glad, you cannot think!” she said.
“Why?” said Marie, in a cold, hard voice, which made Ruth colour highly; but she spoke out.
“Because it seemed so cruel to one who always was kind and chivalrous and – ”
She stopped short with a curiously puzzled look gathering upon her brow, for it now occurred to her that Marie must be angry with herself for casting off Marcus Glen, but she could not read it in her eyes, while the puzzled look deepened as Marie said quietly:
“I am very glad, Ruthy – very glad to feel that I was not mistaken in him, and that he is indeed the true gentleman we believed.”
Ruth took a stool and placed it at Marie’s feet, seating herself there and clinging to her hand, while her cousin softly stroked her hair, vowing to herself the while that if Ruth cared for Marcus Glen, no jealous pang should hinder her from aiding in bringing them together, and no act of hers should be such as would be traitorous to Lord Henry, her confiding husband.
“Why do you look at me so strangely, Ruthy?” said Marie at last.
“I was thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
“Don’t ask me, Marie,” said Ruth in a troubled tone.
“Why not? Shall I tell you? You were thinking that I repent of having married Lord Henry, now that I know I was deceived. Tell me!” she cried, lifting up Ruth’s burning face, and gazing at her searchingly: “you were thinking that, were you not?”
“Yes,” faltered Ruth, “I was.”
“Then you were wrong, Ruthy,” said Marie gravely. “Perhaps I did feel something like compunction when I found this out, but that is all past now, and I am married to one of the best and kindest of men.”
“And you are happy, Marie?”
There was a pause, for it cost Marie a bitter struggle to utter that one word with a smile, but she spoke it bravely at last, and there was a sense of relief after it was said:
“Quite,” Then, after another pause: “Lord Henry is all that is tender and good to me; and now, Ruthy, about yourself?”
“Oh, I am only too glad to come and see you sometimes!”
“Yes; but about this little heart. Ruthy, will you confide in me?”
Marie drew the trembling girl closer to her side, and tried to gaze in her face, but it was averted.
“Yes,” she whispered; “of course I will.”
“Then tell me this – frankly: you love Marcus Glen?”
The pained aspect came back into Marie’s face, and her brow was rugged, as she waited for Ruth’s answer.
“I don’t know,” said Ruth at last.
“You don’t know? Is this your confidence?”
“Oh, don’t speak angrily to me!” cried Ruth passionately. “I will keep nothing from you, Marie. Indeed, indeed I do not know, only that I have prayed, so hard, so very hard, that I might not love him.”
“Prayed that you might not love him?” said Marie, smiling.
“Yes; for I felt that it would be so treacherous, and that it would cause pain to all – to you – to me. Oh, why do you ask me this?”
“Hush! you are growing agitated, and I want to talk to you quietly, and for your good. Suppose it had ceased to be treacherous to think of Captain Glen – suppose he could be brought to love you, and were to ask you to be his wife: what would you say then?”
A servant entered and announced Mr Paul Montaigne; and, blandly calm and smiling, that gentleman entered the room.
It was a surprise for both, and Ruth’s heart began to beat strangely fast as, in his customary paternal way, Montaigne greeted each in turn. She recalled that evening when their visitor had talked with her in the drawing-room, but her dread had increased each time they met, and it was all she could do to keep from shrinking from him and showing her aversion.
But little was said more than that Montaigne told them he was in town on business, and that he had thought he would call, before Lord Henry joined them, greeting Montaigne very warmly, and ending, to Ruth’s horror, by asking him to dine with them next day, and to spend an hour with them whenever he could spare the time.
The rest of that particular evening was passed in quite a political discussion between Lord Henry and his guest, Montaigne taking so little notice of Ruth that her heart grew more at rest; but there was a something in his look as he said good-night, something in the pressure of his hand, that made her think this man loved her, and as she felt for the moment that it might be possible for him to ask her aunts to give her to him as his wife, the poor girl turned cold, and gladly went off shivering to her sleep-forsaken bed.
Ruth had not been with her long when Marie received the old-fashioned communication of wedding cards; the notice in the paper of the marriage of Arthur Litton, Esq., of Duke Street, Saint James’s, to Lady Anna Maria Morton, of the private apartments, Hampton Court Palace, having escaped her eye.