outline of her features. A trace of the Madge of old might have been perceived in the carelessness which permitted a thick, tangled cable of warm-coloured hair to protrude from the back of her bonnet in a great loop. Her form was rounded. The angularities and disproportions of her youth had vanished; her figure seemed now to have been cast in a full, massive mould; and her manners and movements had acquired a solidity and dignity that were indeed quite new.
But her apparent calmness did not make it the less evident that she was really very angry. There was a rich glow upon her cheeks—her delicate nostrils were dilated: by the marked rise and fall of her bosom it could be told that her heart was throbbing with some violence, and her breathing quick. Her superb blue eyes seemed quite to emit light. They were thrown so wide open, and were so brilliantly bright and limpid. She hurried past Sally—there was just a slight smile of recognition playing upon her red lips—but the Rembrandt understood that the situation did not admit just then of conversation—there were other more pressing matters demanding the attention of the visitor. Madge ascended the stairs, and entered the front room on the first floor—it had been Violet’s drawing-room.
Wilford was crouched upon the sofa. She started back as she discovered him. He was dreadfully pale—his hair rumpled, falling upon his face—his beard dishevelled—his whole appearance neglected and disarranged. He appeared to have torn open his shirt, round his neck, and flung away his neckerchief. His boots were covered with mire—his clothes splashed and creased. He was staring fixedly into vacancy before him—apparently abstracted—unconscious.
Madge stopped, hesitatingly, when she perceived him.
“Can it be?” she asked herself, with a very leaping heart. “Is he mad?”
His appearance was sufficiently strange to warrant the question. Madge grew a little frightened.
“Wilford!” she said, at length, in a tolerably firm voice. But he did not hear—or did not heed her.
“Wilford!” she repeated. This time she was evidently trembling.
He heard then. He started, like a man rousing himself with some effort from an absorbing and terrible dream. He passed his hands over his eyes—he pushed his hair from his forehead. He gazed round him in a wild, bewildered way. At last his eyes settled upon the figure of Madge standing in the doorway. His countenance underwent a rapid change, though its duration was but momentary; but the look of deep despair and acute suffering yielded to the brief rule of a hopeful and radiant expression. Though the likeness of Madge and Violet was by no means remarkable, there was at certain times that general resemblance between them to be always found amongst members of the same family. With his whole mind concentrated upon his absent Violet, his every wish magnetically drawn to her, he was liable to be morbidly influenced by the sudden apparition of Madge. For an instant he thought he really saw what it was the sole passionate desire of his soul that he should see; and the figure of Madge seemed to him as a vision of Violet. He uttered a strange cry—he held out his hands imploringly—he fell on his knees.
“Violet! Violet!” he exclaimed, vehemently “Have pity! Have mercy! Forgive me!”
But he had no sooner spoken than he became conscious of his error. He pressed his hands upon his head, as though to bind together by that action his disturbed, distracted intellects. He shrunk back, still kneeling, and his voice thick and hoarse, as though it escaped with difficulty from his parched throat. He cried:
“No, it is not Violet—it is not Violet,” and he stopped. A pause of a few moments.
“No, it is not Violet,” said Madge, at last, painfully agitated and very pale, but with an attempt at calmness and severity. “It is I—her sister. I have come here to demand—” but her assumed strength gave way. She yielded herself to a passionate burst of tears, as she cried, in a broken voice: “Oh! Wilford, Wilford, why have you done this? Why have you made us all so wretched? What have we ever done that you should bring this cruel, cruel wrong upon us? O how shameful, how cruel, how miserable all this is!”—then her sorrow fairly conquered the poor girl’s utterance, and her further words were lost in her loud, heartbroken sobs.
He raised his hand to her again beseechingly. She turned away from him!
“Where is she? Tell me, Madge. Where is she?” he asked, hoarsely. It was some moments before she was able to answer.
“She is with us. She is safe with us, at Grilling Abbots. With us, who love her—who would die for her.”
“Does she suffer very much, Madge? Tell me. I implore you, Madge—my sister—tell me! Is she well?”
“Well?” she exclaimed, with anger. “How can she be well? No, you cruel Wilford, she is not well—she will never be well—it will kill her—she is dying.”
From a kneeling he sunk to a crouching position on the floor, and cried, in an agony:
“Don’t say that, Madge! Don’t—don’t—for God’s sake, don’t tell me she is dying, and that I am her murderer!”
There was such genuine suffering in the tone of this cry, that even Madge, with all her predetermination to be harsh and cold and obdurate, was moved in spite of herself.
“Oh, Wilford,” she said, “how dreadful all this is—how miserable! Who could have believed our happiness could have ended like this? I cannot think of it. I cannot believe it to be true. It seems like some terrible dream from which I shall suddenly awake to find myself at home, and safe, and all well. Is it true? Tell me, Wilford, that it is all a mistake, or a jest—a mad, wicked jest; that we can laugh now that is over, though it pained us so greatly while it lasted. Wilford, tell me this!”
But he only swayed about on the floor, bowing down his head. She saw that there was no hope. She read in the utter wretchedness of his looks that all was only too true.
