She sat by Talbot’s side upon this evening, busy with some pretty needlework, and listening with patient attention to her husband’s perusal of the proof-sheets of his last pamphlet. It was a noble specimen of the stately and ponderous style of writing, and it abounded in crushing arguments and magnificent climaxes, which utterly annihilated somebody (Lucy didn’t exactly make out who), and most incontrovertibly established something, though Mrs. Bulstrode couldn’t quite understand what. It was enough for her that he had written that wonderful composition, and that it was his rich baritone voice that rolled out the studied Johnsonese. If he had pleased to read Greek to her, she would have thought it pleasant to listen. Indeed there were pet passages of Homer which Mr. Bulstrode now and then loved to recite to his wife, and which the little hypocrite pretended to admire. No cloud had darkened the calm heaven of Lucy’s married life. She loved, and was beloved. It was a part of her nature to love in a reverential attitude, and she had no wish to approach nearer to her idol. To sit at her sultan’s feet and replenish his chibouque; to watch him while he slept, and wave the punkah above his seraphic head; to love and admire and pray for him—made up the sum of her heart’s desire.
It was close upon nine o’clock, when Mr. Bulstrode was interrupted in the very crowning sentence of his peroration by a double knock at the street-door. The houses in Halfmoon Street are small, and Talbot flung down his proof-sheet with a gesture expressive of considerable irritation. Lucy looked up, half sympathizingly, half apologetically, at her lord and master. She held herself in a manner responsible for his ease and comfort.
“Who can it be, dear?” she murmured; “at such a time, too!”
“Some annoyance or other, I dare say, my dear,” answered Talbot. “But whoever it is, I won’t see them tonight. I suppose, Lucy, I’ve given you a pretty fair idea of the effect of this upon my honourable friend the member for—”
Before Mr. Bulstrode could name the borough of which his honourable friend was the representative, a servant announced that Mrs. Mellish was waiting below to see the master of the house.
“Aurora!” exclaimed Lucy, starting from her seat and dropping the fairy implements of her work in a little shower upon the carpet; “Aurora! It can’t be, surely? Why, Talbot, she only went back to Yorkshire a few days ago.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Mellish are both below, I suppose?” Mr. Bulstrode said to the servant.
“No, sir; Mrs. Mellish came alone in a cab from the station, I believe. Mrs. Mellish is in the library, sir. I asked her to walk upstairs; but she requested to see you alone, sir, if you please.”
“I’ll come directly,” answered Talbot. “Tell Mrs. Mellish I will be with her immediately.”
The door closed upon the servant, and Lucy ran towards it, eager to hurry to her cousin.
“Poor Aurora!” she said; “there must be something wrong, surely. Uncle Archibald has been taken ill, perhaps; he was not looking well when we left Felden. I’ll go to her, Talbot; I’m sure she’d like to see me first.”
“No, Lucy; no,” answered Mr. Bulstrode, laying his hand upon the door, and standing between it and his wife; “I had rather you didn’t see your cousin until I have seen her. It will be better for me to see her first.” His face was very grave, and his manner almost stern as he said this. Lucy shrank from him as if he had wounded her. She understood him, very vaguely, it is true; but she understood that he had some doubt or suspicion of her cousin, and for the first time in his life Mr. Bulstrode saw an angry light kindled in his wife’s blue eyes.
“Why should you prevent my seeing Aurora?” Lucy asked; “she is the best and dearest girl in the world. Why shouldn’t I see her?”
Talbot Bulstrode stared in blank amazement at his mutinous wife.
“Be reasonable, my dear Lucy,” he answered very mildly; “I hope always to be able to respect your cousin—as much as I respect you. But if Mrs. Mellish leaves her husband in Yorkshire, and comes to London without his permission—for he would never permit her to come alone—she must explain to me why she does so before I can suffer my wife to receive her.”
Poor Lucy’s fair head drooped under this reproof.
She remembered her last conversation with her cousin; that conversation in which Aurora had spoken of some far-off day of trouble, that might bring her to ask for comfort and shelter in Halfmoon Street. Had the day of trouble come already?
“Is it wrong of Aurora to come alone, Talbot, dear?” Lucy asked meekly.
“Is it wrong?” repeated Mr. Bulstrode, fiercely. “Would it be wrong for you to go tearing from here to Cornwall, child?”
He was irritated by the mere imagination of such an outrage, and he looked at Lucy as if he half suspected
