"Oh, Miss Melbury--I would say Mrs. Fitzpiers," she said, wringing her hands. "This terrible news. Is he dead? Is he hurted very bad? Tell me; I couldn't help coming; please forgive me, Miss Melbury--Mrs. Fitzpiers I would say!"
Grace sank down on the oak chest which stood on the landing, and put her hands to her now flushed face and head. Could she order Suke Damson down-stairs and out of the house? Her husband might be brought in at any moment, and what would happen? But could she order this genuinely grieved woman away?
There was a dead silence of half a minute or so, till Suke said, "Why don't ye speak? Is he here? Is he dead? If so, why can't I see him--would it be so very wrong?"
Before Grace had answered somebody else came to the door below--a foot-fall light as a roe's. There was a hurried tapping upon the panel, as if with the impatient tips of fingers whose owner thought not whether a knocker were there or no. Without a pause, and possibly guided by the stray beam of light on the landing, the newcomer ascended the staircase as the first had done. Grace was sufficiently visible, and the lady, for a lady it was, came to her side.
"I could make nobody hear down-stairs," said Felice Charmond, with lips whose dryness could almost be heard, and panting, as she stood like one ready to sink on the floor with distress. "What is--the matter--tell me the worst! Can he live?" She looked at Grace imploringly, without perceiving poor Suke, who, dismayed at such a presence, had shrunk away into the shade.
Mrs. Charmond's little feet were covered with mud; she was quite unconscious of her appearance now. "I have heard such a dreadful report," she went on; "I came to ascertain the truth of it. Is he--killed?"
"She won't tell us--he's dying--he's in that room!" burst out Suke, regardless of consequences, as she heard the distant movements of Mrs. Melbury and Grammer in the bedroom at the end of the passage.
"Where?" said Mrs. Charmond; and on Suke pointing out the direction, she made as if to go thither.
Grace barred the way. "He is not there," she said. "I have not seen him any more than you. I have heard a report only--not so bad as you think. It must have been exaggerated to you."
"Please do not conceal anything--let me know all!" said Felice, doubtingly.
"You shall know all I know--you have a perfect right to know--who can have a better than either of you?" said Grace, with a delicate sting which was lost upon Felice Charmond now. "I repeat, I have only heard a less alarming account than you have heard; how much it means, and how little, I cannot say. I pray God that it means not much--in common humanity. You probably pray the same--for other reasons."
She regarded them both there in the dim light a while.
They stood dumb in their trouble, not stinging back at her; not heeding her mood. A tenderness spread over Grace like a dew. It was well, very well, conventionally, to address either one of them in the wife's regulation terms of virtuous sarcasm, as woman, creature, or thing, for losing their hearts to her husband. But life, what was it, and who was she? She had, like the singer of the psalm of Asaph, been plagued and chastened all the day long; but could she, by retributive words, in order to please herself-- the individual--"offend against the generation," as he would not?
"He is dying, perhaps," blubbered Suke Damson, putting her apron to her eyes.
In their gestures and faces there were anxieties, affection, agony of heart, all for a man who had wronged them--had never really behaved towards either of them anyhow but selfishly. Neither one but would have wellnigh sacrificed half her life to him, even now.
The tears which his possibly critical situation could not bring to her eyes surged over at the contemplation of these fellow-women.
She turned to the balustrade, bent herself upon it, and wept.
