distracted between her desire to calm her mother and to comfort her sister, and the necessity of attending to the Grey family, who repaid themselves for their absence from the scene of action by a torrent of condolences and questions, whence poor Grace gathered to her horror and consternation that the neighbourhood already believed that a tenderer sentiment than philanthropy had begun to mingle in Rachel's relations with the secretary of the F. U. E. E. Feeling it incumbent on the whole family to be as lively and indifferent as possible, Grace, having shut her friends into their rooms to perform their toilette, hurried to her sister, to find her so entirely engrossed with her patient as absolutely to have forgotten the dinner party. No wonder! She had had to hunt up a housemaid to make up a bed for Lovedy in a little room within her own, and the undressing and bathing of the poor child had revealed injuries even in a more painful state than those which had been shown to Mr. Grey, shocking emaciation, and most scanty garments. The child was almost torpid, and spoke very little. She was most unwilling to attempt to swallow; however, Rachel thought that some of her globules had gone down, and put much faith in them, and in warmth and sleep; but incessantly occupied, and absolutely sickened by the sight of the child's hurts, she looked up with loathing at Grace's entreaty that she would, dress for the dinner.
'Impossible,' she said.
'You must, Rachel dear; indeed, you must.'
'As if I could leave her.'
'Nay, Rachel, but if you would only send--'
'Nonsense, Grace; if I can stay with her I can restore her far better than could an allopathist, who would not leave nature to herself. 0 Grace, why can't you leave me in peace? Is it not bad enough without this?'
'Dear Rachel, I am very sorry; but if you did not come down to dinner, think of the talk it would make.'
'Let them talk.'
'Ah, Rachel, but the mother! Think how dreadful the day's work has been to her; and how can she ever get through the evening if she is in a fright at your not coming down?'
'Dinner parties are one of the most barbarous institutions of past stupidity,' said Rachel, and Grace was reassured. She hovered over Rachel while Rachel hovered over the sick child, and between her own exertions and those of two maids, had put her sister into an evening dress by the time the first carriage arrived. She then rushed to her own room, made her own toilette, and returned to find Rachel in conference with Mrs. Kelland, who had come home at last, and was to sit with her niece during the dinner. Perhaps it was as well for all parties that this first interview was cut very short, but Rachel's burning cheeks did not promise much for the impression of ease and indifference she was to make, as Grace's whispered reminders of 'the mother's' distress dragged her down stairs among the all too curious glances of the assembled party.
All had been bustle. Not one moment for recollection had yet been Rachel's. Mr. Grey's words, 'Accountable for all,' throbbed in her ears and echoed in her brain--the purple bruises, the red stripes, verging upon sores, were before her eyes, and the lights, the flowers, the people and their greetings, were like a dizzy mist. The space before dinner was happily but brief, and then, as last lady, she came in as a supernumerary on the other arm of Grace's cavalier, and taking the only vacant chair, found herself between a squire and Captain Keith, who had duly been bestowed on Emily Grey.
Here there was a moment's interval of quiet, for the squire was slightly deaf, and, moreover, regarded her as a little pert girl, not to be encouraged, while Captain Keith was resigned to the implied homage of the adorer of his cross; so that, though the buzz of talk and the clatter of knives and forks roared louder than it had ever seemed to do since she had been a child, listening from the outside, the immediate sense of hurry and confusion, and the impossibility of seeing or hearing anything plainly, began to diminish. She could not think, but she began to wonder whether any one knew what had happened; and, above all, she perfectly dreaded the quiet sting of her neighbour's word and eye, in this consummation of his victory. If he glanced at her, she knew she could not bear it; and if he never spoke to her at all, it would be marked reprehension, which would be far better than sarcasm. He was evidently conscious of her presence; for when, in her insatiable thirst, she had drained her own supply of water, she found the little bottle quietly exchanged for that before him. It was far on in the dinner before Emily's attention was claimed by the gentleman on her other hand, and then there was a space of silence before Captain Keith almost made Rachel start, by saying--
'This has come about far more painfully than could have been expected.'
'I thought you would have triumphed,' she said.
'No, indeed. I feel accountable for the introduction that my sister brought upon you.'
'It was no fault of hers,' said Rachel, sadly.
'I wish I could feel it so.'
'That was a mere chance. The rest was my own doing.'
'Aided and abetted by more than one looker-on.'
'No. It is I who am accountable,' she said, repeating Mr. Grey's words.
'You accept the whole?'
It was his usual, cool, dry tone; but as she replied, 'I must,' she involuntarily looked up, with a glance of entreaty to be spared, and she met those dark, grey, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on her with so much concern as almost to unnerve her.
'You cannot,' he answered; 'every bystander must rue the apathy that let you be so cruelly deceived, for want of exertion on their part.'
'Nay,' she said; 'you tried to open my eyes. I think this would have come worse, but for this morning's stroke.'
'Thank you,' he said, earnestly.
'I daresay you know more than I have been able to understand,' she presently added; 'it is like being in the middle of an explosion, without knowing what stands or falls.'
'And lobster salad as an aggravation!' said he, as the dish successively persecuted them. 'This dinner is hard on you.'
'Very; but my mother would have been unhappy if I had stayed away. It is the leaving the poor child that grieves me. She is in a fearful state, between sore throat, starvation, and blows.'
The picture of the effect of the blows coming before Rachel at that moment, perilled her ability even to sit through the dinner; but her companion saw the suddening whitening of her cheek, and by a dexterous signal at once caused her glass to be filled. Habit was framing her lips to say something about never drinking wine; but somehow she felt a certain compulsion in his look, and her compliance restored her. She returned to the subject, saying, 'But it was only the woman that was cruel.'
'She had not her Sepoy face for nothing.'
'Did I hear that Miss Williams knew her?'
'Yes, it seems she was a maid who had once been very cruel to little Rose Williams. The Colonel seems to think the discovery may have important consequences. I hardly know how.'
This conversation sent Rachel out of the dining-room more like herself than she had entered it; but she ran upstairs at once to Lovedy, and remained with her till disinterred by the desperate Grace, who could not see three people talking together without blushing with indignation at the construction they were certainly putting on her sister's scarlet cheeks and absence from the drawing- room. With all Grace's efforts, however, she could not bring her truant back before the gentlemen had come in. Captain Keith had seen their entrance, and soon came up to Rachel.
'How is your patient?' he asked.
'She is very ill; and the worst of it is, that it seems such agony to her to attempt to swallow.'
'Have you had advice for her?'
'No; I have often treated colds, and I thought this a case, aggravated by that wicked treatment.'
'Have you looked into her mouth?'
'Yes; the skin is frightfully brown and dry.'
He leant towards her, and asked, in an under tone--
'Did you ever see diphtheria'
'No!'--her brow contracting--'did you?'
'Yes; we had it through all the children of the regiment at Woolwich.'
'You think this is it?'
He asked a few more questions, and his impression was evidently confirmed.
