sat down on a low chair in front of the smouldering fire. She was trembling all over, scarcely able to command herself, her cheeks burning with the heat of excitement, yet her teeth chattering with a nervous chill, her strength almost completely broken down. Now that she was alone the tension of her nerves gave way: the light went out of her eyes, her heart seemed to suffocate her, struggling in her breast. The agitation of her whole being prostrated her physically as well as mentally. She lay back upon her chair, as if its support were necessary to hold her together, and then she bent forward, holding her trembling hands to the fire. Had the crisis come, not as she had expected, but in a form that she did not understand? or was this strange interrupted climax a mere break in the stream, no end at all, a broken thread to be taken up again to-morrow and to-morrow indefinitely? Nelly was not capable of forming these questions in her mind, but they swept through the whirlwind within her, with a horror and alarm which she did not understand and knew not how to explain. What had he said? Why had he said that and not something else? What had she done that he had looked at her so? No, she did not ask herself all this; these questions only went whirling about in the wild commotion of her soul. She did not know how long she sat thus, incapable of movement. The fire sank lower, and she felt, without knowing whence it came, a chill draught from her right hand where the window was, but took no notice, perceiving it only, not in a condition of mind to account for it. But Mrs Brunton suddenly sat up erect, and all that tempest stopped in a moment, at the sound of a footstep outside and a tap on the window. What was it? Oh, heaven! what was it? She suddenly remembered in a moment that the window had been unfastened because the room was too warm. The shutters had been almost closed upon it, leaving only the smallest opening to give a little air, and Nelly had forgotten all about it, in her agitation and trouble. She sat for a moment motionless in her panic, thinking of burglars and robbery, not daring to stir. Then there came another tapping, and a low voice. "Mrs Brunton, I have lost my train; I remembered that the window was open; may I come in?"
The next moment, without waiting for any reply—which, indeed, Nelly in her consternation was unable to give—he pushed open the window quickly and came into the room. She stood petrified, staring at him, feeling as if she must have gone suddenly mad, and that all this was a hallucination, as he entered with a glow of triumph in his face.
"Nelly," he said, coming forward to her, dropping down on his knee by the side of her chair. "Darling, you left it open for me! You knew I would come back."
It all happened in a moment, and in a moment Nelly had to make her decision: her life, her fate, her good name, everything in the world worth thinking of, was in the turn of the scale. If he had not made that suggestion, heaven knows, in this prostration of her whole being, what poor Nelly might have done. But it gave her a sting of offence too sharp to bear.
"I left it open for you!" she cried, starting up. "You must be mad, Mr Fitzroy! What do you want? What do you want? Why have you come back here?"
He was startled by the terror, yet almost fury, in her eyes. "Forgive me," he said, starting up also, facing her, "I have lost my train. You know it is the last. What could I do but come back to the only house where I am known? and I thought you would not refuse me shelter for the night."
"Oh," she said almost wildly, "shelter—for the night!"
"May I close the window? It's rather cold, and you are shivering. If I have frightened you, forgive me, forgive me! Rather than that, I would have walked to London or sat down on a doorstep."
"I am not frightened," said Mrs Brunton with a gasp. Her senses came back to her; she felt that she must keep very cool, and make no scene. "It was a little alarming to see a man come in," she said. "It is very unfortunate that you should have lost your train. I am afraid you will not be very comfortable, but we will do the best we can for you."
He caught her sleeve as she was turning to the door. "Where are you going?" he cried.
"Only to call one of the maids to make a room ready for you."
"I want no room," he said. "An hour or two on the sofa will be luxury; and I shall be off in the morning by dawn of day, and disturb no one. Nobody need know: and you are not the sort of girl to think of Mrs Grundy. Nelly, my darling! stay, stay with me a bit! what is the use of taking me in if you leave me like this? Half an hour, just half an hour, to finish our talk!"
"When I have given my orders, perhaps," said Nelly. She would not stop even to forbid the familiarity of his address. She walked out of the room with composed steps, but as soon as she was outside flew up the dark staircase to the nursery, where nurse, an anxious and troubled woman, was not yet asleep. Mrs Brunton went in like a ghost to the room in which the night-light was burning, where the children were breathing softly in their cribs. "Nurse," she said, with all the composure she could command, "Mr Fitzroy has come back; he has lost his train. I want you to get up and prepare the spare room for him. I am sorry: but what else can we do?"
Nurse looked fixedly at her mistress in the light of the candle which Nelly had just lighted, and which came to life in a sudden glare upon her agitated face. "Yes, ma'am," she said quietly, beginning to dress.
What a strange agitated scene in the middle of the silent night! The man below could not have been more dismayed by the appearance of a band of soldiers than he was by the quiet, respectable, respectful maid-servant who came in with a candle to show him to his room, and whose polite determination to get rid of him, to put out the lamp and see that everything was safe for the night, was full of the most perfect calm. "I'll go up-stairs presently; but you need not wait," he said. "Oh, sir, I don't mind waiting; but my mistress likes me to see the lights out. I'll be in the next room when you are ready, sir, to show you the way."
He was moved at last to ask impatiently, "Is not Mrs Brunton coming down-stairs again?"
"Oh dear no, sir; my mistress is passing the night in the nursery, for Master Jack is a little feverish, and he never will part with his mamma when once he sees her. If she offered to go away he'd scream so, he'd raise the whole house."
Fitzroy glared at this guardian of the little helpless household—a very respectful, very obliging maid-servant—making light of the trouble a nocturnal visitor gave. He could no more have resisted or insulted this woman than if she had been a queen. He followed her quite humbly to his room, not daring to say a word. He might as well have been in a hotel, he said bitterly to himself.
When nurse went back she found poor Nelly sitting on the floor between the two little beds, her head leaning on one of them, holding fast the rail of the other, and weeping as if her heart would break.
Next morning Mr Fitzroy left the cottage early, without asking to see Mrs Brunton. It was, indeed, too early to disturb the lady of the house.
CHAPTER VII.
Mrs Brunton woke next morning with an aching head and a confused mind, not knowing for a moment what had happened to her. Was it a nightmare? a dreadful dream? She had not slept till morning, and then had fallen into an unrestful torpor, full of the broken reminiscences of the night. A nightmare! that was most like what it was—until she came to herself all at once, and remembered everything.
Everything! and yet did not in the least understand. What had been the meaning of it all? It was more like a nightmare than ever as all the different incidents come back upon her mind. The lingering, the wild talk—the question, "Must I go away?" The cry "I love you. I adore——" and nurse coming in to save her mistress perhaps from wilder utterances still. "Was it indispensable that he should go by the last train?" What a question! Was
