“Yes, I wish you had not said anything, Frances: not that it matters very much. I don’t suppose he was in earnest, or, at all events, he would have changed his mind before evening. But, my dear, this poor young fellow is not able to follow the same course as Markham’s friends do. They are at it all the year round, now in town, now somewhere else. They bet and play, and throw their money about, and at the end of the year they are not very much the worse—or at least that is what he always tells me. One time they lose, but another time they gain. And then they are men who have time, and money more or less. But when a young man with a little money comes among them, he may ruin himself before he knows.{v3-57}”

“I am very sorry,” said Frances. “It is difficult to believe that Markham could hurt any one.”

Her mother gave her a grateful look. “Dear Markham!” she said. “To think that he should be so good—and yet—— It gives me great pleasure, Frances, that you should appreciate your brother. Your father never did so—and all of them, all the Warings—— But it is understood between us, is it not, that we are not to touch upon that subject?”

“Perhaps it would be painful, mamma. But how am I to understand unless I am told?”

“You have never been told, then—your father——? But I might have known he would say very little; he always hated explanations. My dear,” said Lady Markham, with evident agitation, “if I were to enter into that story, it would inevitably take the character of a self-defence, and I can’t do that to my own child. It is the worst of such unfortunate circumstances as ours that you must judge your parents, and find one or other in the wrong. Oh yes; I do not deceive myself on that{v3-58} subject. And you are a partisan in your nature. Con was more or less of a cynic, as people become who are bred up in Society, as she was. She could believe we were both wrong, calmly, without any particular feeling. But you,—of your nature, Frances, you would be a partisan.”

“I hope not, mamma. I should be the partisan of both sides,” said Frances, almost under her breath.

Lady Markham rose and gave her a kiss. “Remain so,” she said, “my dear child. I will say no harm of him to you, as I am sure he has said no harm of me. Now let us think no more of Markham’s faults, nor of poor young Gaunt’s danger, nor of——”

“Danger?” said Frances, with an anxious look.

“If it were less than danger, would I have said so much, do you think?”

“But, mamma, pardon me,—if it is real danger, ought you not to say more?”

“What! for the sake of another woman’s son, betray and forsake my own? How can I say to him in so many words, ‘Take care of Markham; avoid Markham and his friends.’ I have{v3-59} said it in hints as much as I dare. Yes, Frances, I would do a great deal for another woman’s son. It would be the strongest plea. But in this case how can I do more? Never mind; fate will work itself out quite independent of you and me. And here are people coming—Claude, probably, to see if you have changed your mind about him, or whether I have heard from Constance. Poor boy! he must have one of you two.”

“I hope not,” said Frances, seriously.

“But I am sure of it,” cried her mother, with a smile. “We shall see which of us is the better prophet. But this is not Claude. I hear the sweep of a woman’s train. Hush!” she said, holding up a finger. She rose as the door opened, and then hastened forward with an astonished exclamation, “Nelly!” and held out both her hands.

“You did not look for me?” said Mrs Winterbourn, with a defiant air.

“No, indeed; I did not look for you. And so fine, and looking so well. He must have taken an unexpected turn for the better, and you have come to tell me.{v3-60}”

“Yes, am I not smart?” said Nelly, looking down upon her beautiful dress with a curious air, half pleasure, half scorn. “It is almost new; I have never worn it before.”

“Sit down here beside me, my dear, and tell me all about it. When did this happy change occur?”

“Happy? For whom?” she asked, with a harsh little laugh. “No, Lady Markham, there is no change for the better: the other way—they say there is no hope. It will not be very long, they say, before——”

“And Nelly, Nelly! you here, in your fine new dress.”

“Yes; it seems ridiculous, does it not?” she said, laughing again. “I away—going out to pay visits in my best gown, and my husband—dying. Well! I know that if I had stayed any longer in that dreary house without any air, and with Sarah Winterbourn, I should have died. Oh, you don’t know what it is. To be shut up there, and never hear a step except the doctor’s, or Robert’s carrying up the beef-tea. So I burst out of prison, to save my life. You{v3-61} may blame me if you like, but it was to save my life, neither less nor more.”

“Nelly, my dear,” said Lady Markham, taking her hand, “there is nothing wonderful in your coming to see so old a friend as I am. It is quite natural. To whom should you go in your trouble, if not to your old friends?”

Upon which Nelly laughed again in an excited hysterical way. “I have been on quite a round,” she said. “You always did scold me, Lady Markham; and I know you will do so again. I was determined to show myself once more before—the waters went over my head. I can come out now in my pretty gown. But afterwards, if I did such a thing everybody would think me mad. Now you know why I have come, and you can scold me as much as you please. But I have done it, and it can’t be undone. It is a kind of farewell visit, you know,” she added, in her excited tone. “After this I shall disappear into—crape and affliction. A widow! What a horrible word. Think of me, Nelly St John; me, a widow! Isn’t it horrible, horrible? That is what they will call{v3-62} me, Markham and the other men—the widow. I know how they will speak, as well as if I heard them. Lady Markham, they will call me that, and you know what they will mean.”

“Nelly, Nelly, my poor child!” Lady Markham held her hand and patted it softly with her own. “Oh Nelly, you are very imprudent, very silly. You will shock everybody, and make them talk. You ought not to have come out now. If you had sent for me, I would have gone to you in a moment.”

“It was not that I wanted. I wanted just to be like others for once—before—- I don’t seem to care what will happen to me—afterwards. What do they do to a woman, Lady Markham, when her husband dies? They would not let her bury herself with him, or burn herself, or any of those sensible things. What do they do, Lady Markham? Brand her somewhere in her flesh with a red-hot iron—with ‘Widow’ written upon her flesh?”

“My dear, you must care for poor Mr Winterbourn a great deal more than you were aware, or you would not feel this so bitterly. Nelly——”

“Hush!” she said, with a sort of solemnity.{v3-63} “Don’t say that, Lady Markham. Don’t talk about what I feel. It is all so miserable, I don’t know what I am doing. To think that he should be my husband, and I just boiling with life, and longing to get free, to get free: I that was born to be a good woman, if I could, if you would all have let me, if I had not been made to—— Look here! I am going to speak to that little girl. You can say the other thing afterwards. I know you will. You can make it look so right—so right. Frances, if you are persuaded to marry Claude Ramsay, or any other man that you don’t care for, remember you’ll just be like me. Look at me, dressed out, paying visits, and my husband dying. Perhaps he may be dead when I get home.” She paused a moment with a nervous shivering, and drew her summer cloak closely around her. “He is going to die, and I am running about the streets. It is horrible, isn’t it? He doesn’t want me, and I don’t want him; and next week I shall be all in crape, and branded on my shoulder or somewhere—where, Lady Markham?—all for a man who—all for a man that{v3-64}——”

“Nelly, Nelly! for heaven’s sake, at least respect the child.”

“It is because I respect her that I say anything. Oh, it is all horrible! And already the men and everybody are discussing, What will Nelly do? The widow, what will she do?”

Then the excited creature suddenly, without warning, broke out into sobbing and tears. “Oh, don’t think it is for grief,” she said, as Frances instinctively came towards her; “it’s only the excitement, the horror of it, the feeling that it is coming so near. I never was in the house with Death, never, that I can remember. And I shall be the chief mourner, don’t you know? They will want me to do all sorts of things. What do you do when you are a widow, Lady Markham? Have you to give orders for the funeral, and say what sort of a—coffin there is to be, and—all that?”

“Nelly, Nelly! Oh, for God’s sake, don’t say those dreadful things. You know you will not be troubled about anything, least of all—— And, my dear, my dear, recollect your husband is still alive. It is dreadful to talk of details such as those for a living man.{v3-65}”

“Most likely,” she said, looking up with a shiver, “he will be dead when I get home. Oh, I wish it might all be over, everything, before I go home. Couldn’t you hide me somewhere, Lady Markham? Save me from seeing him and all those—details, as you call them. I cannot bear it; and I have no mother nor any one to come to me—nobody, nobody but Sarah Winterbourn.”

“I will go home with you, Nelly; I will t............