A Life For a Love Part 53

"You are tired. Shall I give you my seat?"

"Eh, sir, you are kind. I have come a long way and am fair spent."

"You shall sit here, if you will let this tired girl lay her head on your breast."

"Eh, but she don't look as good as she might be!"

"Never mind. Jesus Christ would have let her put her head on His breast. Thank you, I knew you were a kind hearted woman. She will be much better near you than near me. Here is a shilling. Give it her when she wakes. Good-night."

CHAPTER L.

Esther longed to go to Acacia Villas during the week. She often felt on the point of asking Mrs. Wyndham to give her leave, but then again she felt afraid to raise suspicions; and besides her mistress was ill, and clung to her. Although Esther listened with a kind of terror on the following evening, the sound of the violin was not again heard.

Sunday came at last, and she could claim her privilege of going home.

She arrived at Acacia Villas with her heart in a tumult. How much she would have to tell Wyndham! It was in her power to make him happy, to relieve his heart of its worst load.

Cherry alone was in the kitchen when she arrived, and Cherry was in a very snappish humor.

"No, Esther, I don't know where uncle is. He's not often at home now. I hear say that Mr. Paget is very bad--gone in the head you know. They'll have to put him into an asylum, and that'll be a good thing for poor uncle. Take off your bonnet and cloak, Esther, and have a cup of tea cosy-like. I'm learning one of Macaulay's Lays now for a recitation.

Maybe you'd hear me a few of the stanzas when you're drinking your tea."

"Yes, Cherry, dear, but I want to go up to Brother Jerome first. I can see him while you're getting the kettle to boil. I've a little parcel here which I want him to take down to Sister Josephine to the Mission House to-morrow."

Cherry laughed in a half-startled way.

"Don't you know?" she said.

"Don't I know what?"

"Why Brother Jerome ain't here; he went out on Tuesday evening and never came home. I thought, for sure, uncle would have gone and told you."

"Never came home since Tuesday? No, I didn't hear."

Esther sat down and put her hand to her heart. Her face was ghastly.

"I knew it," murmured Cherry under her breath. "She have gone and fallen in love with a chap from one of them slums."

Aloud she said in a brisk tone:--

"Yes, he's gone. I don't suppose there's much in it. He were tired of the attic, that's all. I sleep easy of nights now. No more pacing the boards overhead, nor hack, hack, hack coughing fit to wake the seven sleepers. What's the matter, Esther?"

"You are the most heartless girl I ever met," said Esther. "No, I don't want your tea."

She tied her bonnet strings and left the house without glancing at her crestfallen cousin.

That very same afternoon, as Mrs. Wyndham was sitting in her bedroom, trying to amuse baby, who was in a slightly refractory humor, there came a sudden message for her. One of the maids came into the room with the information that Helps was downstairs and wanted to speak to her directly.

Mrs. Wyndham had not left her room since Tuesday evening. There was nothing apparently the matter with her, and yet all through the week her pulse had beat too quickly, and a hectic color came and went on her cheeks. She ate very little, she slept badly, and the watchful expression in her eyes took from their beauty and gave them a strained appearance. She did not know herself why she was watchful, or what she was waiting for, but she was consciously nervous and ill at ease.

When the maid brought the information that Helps was downstairs, her mistress instantly started to her feet, almost pushing the astonished and indignant baby aside.

"Take care of Master Gerry," she said to the girl. "I will go and speak to Mr. Helps; where is he?"

"I showed him into the study, ma'am."

Valentine ran downstairs; her eagerness and impatience and growing presentiment that something was at hand increased with each step she took. She entered the study, and said in a brusque voice, and with a bright color in her cheeks:--

"Well?"

"Mr. Paget has sent me to you, Mrs. Wyndham," said Helps, in his uniformly weak tones. "Mr. Paget is ill, and he wants to see you at once."

Valentine stepped back a pace.

"My father!" she said. "But he knows I do not care to go to the house."

"He knows that fact very well, Mrs. Wyndham."

"Still he sent for me?"

"He did, madam."

"Is my father worse than usual?"

"In some ways he is worse--in some better," replied Helps in a dubious sort of voice. "If I were you I'd come. Miss Valentine--Mrs. Wyndham, I mean."

"Yes, Helps, I'll come; I'll come instantly. Will you fetch a cab for me?"

"There's one waiting at the door, ma'am."

"Very well. I won't even go upstairs. Fetch me my cloak from the stand in the hall, will you? Now I am ready."

The two got into the cab and drove away. No one in the house even knew that they had gone.

When they arrived at Queen's Gate, Helps still took the lead.

"Is my father in the library?" asked the daughter.

"No, Mrs. Wyndham. Mr. Paget has been in his room for the last day or two. I'll take you to him, if you please, at once."

"Thank you, Helps."

Valentine left her cloak in the hall, and followed the old servant upstairs.