"I always enjoy your delightful music, my dear. It makes the house
more lively."
"Thank you, dear Mrs. Sutton. I should take pleasure in obliging
you; but if Mabel is out of sorts, I don't believe she will care to
have the house lively to-night," was the amiable rejoinder.
"Moreover, I am dying to finish 'David Copperfield.' Will you allow
me to curl myself up in the big chair here, and read for an hour?"
Mrs. Sutton gave a consent that was almost glad in its alacrity, and
pretended to occupy herself with the newspapers brought by the
evening mail, until she judged that Mabel had had season in which to
compose her thoughts. Then she muttered something about "breakfast,"
"muffins," and "Daphne," caught up her key-basket, and bustled out.
Rosa's book fell from before her face at the sound of the closing
door. The liquid eyes were turbid; her features moved by some
passion mightier far than curiosity or compassion for her friend's
distress.
"I have done nothing--literally nothing, to bring this on!" was the
reflection which brought most calm to her agitated mind. "If it
should be as I think, I am guiltless of treachery. My skirts are
clear. My hands are clean! Yet there have been moments when I could
have dipped them in blood that this end might be attained!"
Too restless to remain quiet, she tossed her book aside and wandered
from side to side of the room, halting frequently to hearken for
Mrs. Sutton's return, or some noise from the conference chamber that
might alleviate her suspense.
"I tried to put her on her guard," she broke forth at length, bent,
it would seem, upon self-justification against an invisible accuser.
"I saw aversion in Winston's eye the day he came home to find the
other here. He would never forgive his slave the presumption of
choosing a husband for herself. Did I not tell her so? Yet this has
caught her like a rabbit in a trap--unprepared for endurance or
resistance. The spiritless baby! Would I give him up, except with
life, if he loved me as he does her?"
It was not a baby's face that was confronting Mrs. Sutton's just
then. It was no weak, spiritless slave who sustained the pelting
shower of her comments, her wonderment and her entreaties that Mabel
would refuse to abide by her brother's decision--her guardian though
he was--and if she would not write to Frederic with her own hand,
empower her aunt to apply to him for an explanation of the
disgraceful mystery.