Volume Iii Part 27 (2/2)
”You need ask him for nothing; but help in this case means money--as it generally does; leave the sum to him, but you must understand when you use the world 'help' what it does mean. I merely wanted to prepare you for that.”
”Thank you,” said Grace, whose hopes were now sunk very low indeed.
She sat silent for a few moments, and then, looking up, said, ”Supposing you spoke to Mrs. Dorriman, she can say many things to her brother no one else can, and she always understands.”
”Yes,” said Mr. Stevens in an odd tone, ”I agree with you, she does understand most things.”
”When do you go there?”
”On Thursday, I hope; and now, Mrs. Lyons, before we part let me know how am I to communicate with you.”
”Can you write to me?”
”That is not quite impossible; but if your husband is to know nothing about this it seems to me that my writing to you upon business matters--now he is supposed to know all about your business--may lead to complications.”
”You do not understand, Mr. Stevens, he--my husband--never asks any questions. I merely told him I had succeeded to fifteen thousand pounds; he was very much surprised and pleased, I suppose, but there the matter dropped. Mr. Sandford arranged all about the money matters for me, and the money was settled upon me and then upon my husband.”
”That complicates matters of course; you have no power to give up money settled upon him; I see no way out of it.”
”Do speak to Mrs. Dorriman,” pleaded Grace, ”she has a great opinion of you, and, if you put the matter before her, something might be done.”
”I still advise you to tell your husband,” said Mr. Stevens; ”remember every day's delay makes confession more difficult afterwards. Then again, does not Lady Lyons know about it?”
”I do not think she does,” but as she spoke Grace felt very uncomfortable. She once again entreated Mr. Stevens to speak to Mrs.
Dorriman, and as Paul got into the carriage again she could only trust that her persuasion had been successful.
No one, however, can imagine how this dread of discovery weighed upon her. Each time Paul returned, when he had been out alone, her expression, when he appeared, was anxiety--did he know? had anything been said to make him suspicious?
”I am beginning to be afraid you are tired of me,” he said one day; ”when I come home now you never look the least pleased to see me.”
”I am glad, dear; please do not take fancies into your head.”
”Well, I wish you showed it a little more; I am longing to get you away--you are much less energetic than you were a little while ago. The way you stick to my mother is very unlike you. I am awfully fond of her, and all that, but I like having you a bit by myself, and her too for that matter.”
Grace turned red and white by turns. She knew that she was suffering from irritability produced by anxiety. She was essentially one who could stand neither fatigue of body nor anxiety of mind.
”What can you have to say to your mother that I may not hear?” she asked, with a certain sharpness of tone that surprised him. He looked at her attentively, and that seemed to displease her still more. To his unbounded astonishment she burst out crying, and cried with a sort of miserable, helpless vehemence, that was infinitely distressing to him.
”My darling! can you not tell me what is wrong?” he said, ”for there _is_ something wrong, you are not yourself. Who can you turn to if you have any worry or distress so well as to your husband? Have you no confidence in me?”
”Don't,” she sobbed, ”you only make me worse!”
He was deeply wounded, not so much by her words as by the way she shrank from him.
Lady Lyons made her voice heard in the pa.s.sage, asking if her son was in, and Grace s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand from Paul, and rushed out of the room by one door as her mother-in-law came in at the other.
Paul was an affectionate son, but at that particular moment he would have preferred to have had time to discover what was the matter with his wife, and he was so absorbed that his mother told him a fact very interesting to her, and which she considered should have been equally interesting to him, without his taking it in.
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