advanced towards her, she received his bow as something that she had been expecting. There is a kind of inferior second-sight in many who undergo strong trouble, and they will often tell you incidents which, to your calmer mind, seem startling coincidences, but for which they declare themselves to have been perfectly prepared.
“How considerate in you, Mrs. Lygon,” said Adair, after a few words of commonplace, scarcely I replied to by her, “how very considerate in you to leave the newly arrived husband to receive the congratulations of his wife, without the presence of a third person, even a third person who would be so welcome as yourself!”
“Have you any object in addressing me, Mr. Adair? If you have, spare any useless introduction—if not—”
“Spare me your presence, you were going to add, Mrs. Lygon, with the amiable frankness I have so often had to admire. Believe that I should not have ventured to intrude upon you, unless I had had an object.”
“What is it?”
“Although you are good enough to imply that introduction is needless, I feel ashamed of being too blunt on such a theme. I was about to offer some preliminary excuses.”
“They are needless.”
“Yet not the less due,” persisted Adair. “I will only presume to inquire—no. I will only presume to remark that whenever either of two ladies who have my interests very much at heart shall have anything to communicate to me, the information will be most welcome.”
“I understand. Be assured that no unnecessary delay is taking place.”
“The assurance is more than sufficient. I may infer that the arrival of Mr. Urquhart will not interpose any new difficulty.”
“Why should it?”
“Only by rendering the intercourse of those ladies more difficult.”
The words seemed to imply a knowledge on the part of Adair of what had taken place in Mr. Urquhart’s home that day. But had he avowed such knowledge, Laura would have felt no surprise; or, rather, would have scarcely given a thought to her surprise.
“Nothing will prevent the carrying out the object,” she said, coldly.
“I must say no more, or if I again venture to hint that there are reasons why promptness would confer a deep obligation upon me, I must couple that hint with the hope that it will disturb none of the admirable plans which I am sure are being forwarded.”
“I shall endeavour to act for the best.”
“And you will succeed. Should I be trespassing in asking whether in saying, ‘I,’ Mrs. Lygon implies that the management of the affair is entirely in her hands?”
“There is no use in entering into discussion. You are well aware that the business must be completed, and that it can be nobody’s wish to prolong it.”
“I accept the painful intimation that the sooner I am disposed of the better. I have only to add, that if Mrs. Lygon finds Mr. Urquhart inclined to any misconceptions upon the subject of her visit, and those misconceptions should take a disagreeable form, and one likely to interfere with what I may call our object, I might think it desirable to remove them, without her aid.”
“Do anything like that which your menace implies,” said Mrs. Lygon, “and you destroy your own hopes.”
“But I substitute for them—certainties,” replied Adair. “I am sure that I am understood; and, as here comes Henderson, with a message (no, a letter, by her keeping her hand in her pocket so carefully), I will not longer trespass on your time.”
He bowed, and passed to another part of the gardens.
“I saw him, Madame,” said Henderson, looking with a tigerish glance in the direction he had taken. “I would have waited until he had gone, but it was of no use. He knows of master breaking the door open, and, I suppose, a good deal more.”
“He still obtains information from the house, then, Mary?”
“I can’t quite bring it home to her yet,” said the girl, “but I know that Angelique had not a sou of money last Sunday, and she has bought herself a gold cross to hang round her great red neck. I guess where that money came from, but I cannot prove it yet, Madame. When I can, she and me will have a word of a sort. I suppose the sound of the money was too much for her fears of the ghost; and yet I thought I had frightened her into a fit. I know I tried my best, Madame.”
“You are sent by Mrs. Urquhart?”
“I have a note, Madame, and perhaps you would be so kind as to let me stand near you while you read it, for he might make a rush to get it.”
“I am not afraid of that,” said Mrs. Lygon, taking the note.
It was from Bertha, who had written a few hasty lines.
“Dearest Laura,
“I cannot explain, and I dare not come to you. I think that you had better go home, before worse comes of it, and leave me to manage in some way with A. You know what R. is when he takes anything into his head, and he will not hear a word in your favour; but of course you know my feelings. I will write to you to London. God bless you.
“Your affectionate
“Your affection“B.”
A heartless letter wounds more than a heartless speech. It is not that the deliberation of the act of writing implies studied unkindness, for many cruel letters are more hasty than many cruel words; and most letters are less kindly than the intentions of the writer; but there is in a written message of unkindness the blow given by one who instantly recedes into the distance, out of the way of reproach or expostulation. So Laura felt this epistle. This was the return for all that she had done, and sought to do.”
“There is no answer,” she said, with a smile to the expectant Henderson. “Only say that you