Part 54 (2/2)

”George, I am sure mamma never meant to interfere; she would not do such a thing. What she said arose from anxiety for our interests. I am so sorry to have offended you,” she added, the tears falling fast.

A repentant fit had come over him. He drew his wife's face down on his own and kissed its tears away. ”Forgive me, my dearest; I was wrong to speak crossly to _you_. A splitting headache has put me out of sorts, and I was vexed to hear that people were commenting on our private affairs. Nothing could annoy me half so much.”

Maria wondered why. But she fully resolved that it should be the last time she would hint at such a thing as economy. Of course her husband knew his own business best.

CHAPTER III.

CECIL'S ROMANCE.

We must turn to Ashlydyat, and go back to a little earlier in the evening. Miss G.o.dolphin's note to the Folly had stated that her brother had been taken ill while dressing for Mr. Verrall's dinner-party. It was correct. Thomas G.o.dolphin was alone in his room, ready, when he was attacked by a sharp internal paroxysm of agony. He hastily sat down: a cry escaped his lips, and drops of water gathered on his brow.

Alone he bore it, calling for no aid. In a few minutes the pain had partially pa.s.sed, and he rang for his servant. An old man now, that servant: he had for years attended on Sir George G.o.dolphin.

”Bexley, I have been ill again,” said Thomas, quietly. ”Will you ask Miss G.o.dolphin to write a line to Mr. Verrall, saying that I am unable to attend.”

Bexley cast a strangely yearning look on the pale, suffering face of his master. He had seen him in these paroxysms once or twice. ”I wish you would have Mr. Snow called in, sir!” he cried.

”I think I shall. He may give me some ease, possibly. Take my message to your mistress, Bexley.”

The effect of the message was to bring Janet to the room. ”Taken ill! a sharp inward pain!” she was repeating, after Bexley. ”Thomas, what sort of a pain is it? It seems to me that you have had the same before lately.”

”Write a few words the first thing, will you, Janet? I should not like to keep them waiting for me.”

Janet, punctilious as Thomas, considerate as he was for others, sat down and wrote the note, despatching it at once by Andrew, one of the serving men. Few might have set about and done it so calmly as Janet, considering that she had a great fear thumping at her heart. A fear which had never penetrated it until this moment. With something very like sickness, had flashed into her memory their mother's pain. A sharp, agonizing pain had occasionally attacked _her_, the symptom of the inward malady of which she had died. Was the same fatal malady attacking Thomas? The doctors had expressed their fears then that it might prove hereditary.

In the corridor, as Janet was going back to Thomas's room, the note despatched, she encountered Bexley. The sad, apprehensive look in the old man's face struck her. She touched his arm, and beckoned him into an empty room.

”What is it that is the matter with your master?”

”I don't know,” was the answer: but the words were spoken in a tone which caused Janet to think that the old man was awake to the same fears that she was. ”Miss Janet, I am afraid to think what it may be.”

”Is he often ill like this?”

”I know but of a time or two, ma'am. But that's a time or two too many.”

Janet returned to the room. Thomas was leaning back in his chair, his face ghastly, his hands fallen, prostrate altogether from the effects of the agony. Things were coming into her mind one by one: how much time Thomas had spent in his own room of late; how seldom, comparatively speaking, he went to the Bank; how often he had the brougham, instead of walking, when he did go to it. Once--why, it was only this very last Sunday!--he had not gone near church all day long. Janet's fears grew into certainties.

She took a chair, drawing it nearer to Thomas. Not speaking of her fears, but asking him in a soothing tone how he felt, and what had caused his illness. ”Have you had the same pain before?” she continued.

”Several times,” he answered. ”But it has been worse to-night than I have previously felt it. Janet, I fear it may be the forerunner of my call. I did not think to leave you so soon.”

Except that Janet's face went almost as pale as his, and that her fingers entwined themselves together so tightly as to cause pain, there was no outward sign of the grief that laid hold of her heart.

”Thomas, what is the complaint that you are fearing?” she asked, after a pause. ”The same that--that----”

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