第155章

"Do I mean you, or do I mean me? Are we governesses?" irascibly cried Miss Corny. "Who should I mean, but Madame Vine?"

She turned herself round from the looking-glass, and gazed full in Joyce's face, waiting for the answer. Joyce lowered her voice as she gave it.

"There are times when she puts me in mind of my late lady both in her face and manner. But I have never said so, ma'am; for you know Lady Isabel's name must be an interdicted one in this house."

"Have you seen her without her glasses?"

"No; never," said Joyce.

"I did to-day," returned Miss Carlyle. "And I can tell you, Joyce, that I was confounded at the likeness. It is an extraordinary likeness. One would think it was a ghost of Lady Isabel Vane come into the world again."

That evening after dinner, Miss Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn sat side by side on the same sofa, coffee cups in hand. Miss Carlyle turned to the earl.

"Was it a positively ascertained fact that Lady Isabel died?"

The earl stared with all his might; he thought it the strangest question that ever was asked him. "I scarcely understand you, Miss Carlyle. Died? Certainly she died."

"When the result of the accident was communicated to you, you made inquiry yourself into its truth, its details, I believe?"

"It was my duty to do so. There was no one else to undertake it."

"Did you ascertain positively, beyond all doubt, that she did die?"

"Of a surety I did. She died in the course of the same night. Terribly injured she was."

A pause. Miss Carlyle was ruminating. But she returned to the charge, as if difficult to be convinced.

"You deem that there could be no possibility of an error? You are sure that she is dead?"

"I am as sure that she is dead as that we are living," decisively replied the earl: and he spoke but according to his belief. "Wherefore should you be inquiring this?"

"A thought came over me--only to-day--to wonder whether she was really dead."

"Had any error occurred at that time, any false report of her death, I should soon have found it out by her drawing the annuity I settled upon her. It has never been drawn since. Besides, she would have written to me, as agreed upon. No, poor thing, she is gone beyond all doubt, and has taken her sins with her."

Convincing proofs; and Miss Carlyle lent her ear to them.

The following morning while Madame Vine was at breakfast, Mr. Carlyle entered.

"Do you admit intruders here Madame Vine?" cried he, with his sweet smile, and attractive manner.

She arose; her face burning, her heart throbbing.

"Keep your seat, pray; I have but a moment to stay," said Mr. Carlyle.

"I have come to ask you how William seems?"

"There was no difference," she murmured, and then she took courage and spoke more openly. "I understood you to say the other night, sir, that he should have further advice."

"Ay; I wish him to go over to Lynneborough, to Dr. Martin; the drive, I think, will do him good," replied Mr. Carlyle. "And I would like you to accompany him, if you do not mind the trouble. You can have the pony carriage, it will be better to go in that than boxed up in the railway carriage. You can remind Dr. Martin that the child's constitution is precisely what his mother's was," continued Mr. Carlyle, a tinge lightening his face. "It may be a guide to his treatment; he said himself it was, when he attended him for an illness a year or two ago."

"Yes, sir."

He crossed the hall on his entrance to the breakfast-room. She tore upstairs to her chamber, and sank down in an agony of tears and despair. Oh, to love him as she did now! To yearn after his affection with this passionate, jealous longing, and to know that they were separated for ever and ever; that she was worse to him than nothing!

Softly, my lady. This is not bearing your cross.