About dusk a servant came to the door, with a tray of tea and something to eat, that Mr. Richard had sent her with.

“No,” I said, “don’t leave it here.”

But, in a few moments, Richard himself brought it back.  I can well imagine how anxious and unhappy he felt.  He had, perhaps, never before had charge of any one ill or in trouble, and this was a strange experience.

“You must eat something, Pauline,” he said.  “I want you to.  Sit up, and take this tea.”

I was not inclined to dispute his will, but raised my head, and drank the tea, and ate a few mouthfuls of the biscuit.  But that made me too ill, and I put the plate away from me.

“I am very sorry,” I said, meekly, “but I can’t eat it.  I feel as if it choked me.”

He seemed touched with my submissiveness, and, giving Bettina the tray, stood looking down at me as if he did not know how to say something that was in his mind.  Suddenly my ear, always quick, now exaggeratedly so, caught sound of carriage-wheels.  I started up and cried, “They are coming,” and hid my face in my hands.

“Don’t be troubled,” he said, “you shall not be disturbed.”

“Oh, Richard,” I exclaimed, as he was going away, after another undecided movement as if to speak, “you know what I want.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, in a low voice.

“And now they’re come, I cannot.  They will see him, and I cannot.”

“Be patient.  I will arrange for you to go.  Don’t, don’t, Pauline.”

For I was in a sort of spasm, though no tears came, and my sobs were more like the gasps of a person being suffocated, than like one in grief.

“If you will only be quiet, I will take you down, after a few hours, when they are all gone to their rooms.  Pauline, you’ll kill me; don’t do so—­Pauline, they’ll hear you.  Try not to do so; that’s right—­lie down and try to quiet yourself, poor child.  I can’t bear to go away; but there is Sophie on the stairs.”

He had scarcely time to reach the hall before Sophie burst upon him with almost a shriek.

“What is this horrible affair, Richard?  What a terrible disgrace and scandal! we never shall get over it.  Will it get in the papers, do you think?  I am so ill—­I have been in such a state since the news came.  Such a drive home as this has been!  Oh, Richard, tell me all about it quickly.  Where is Pauline? how does she bear it?” making for my door.

Richard put out his hand and stopped her.  I had sprung up from the bed, and stood, trembling violently, at the further extremity of the room.  I do not know what I meant to do if she came in, for I was almost beside myself at that moment.

She was persistent, angry, agitated.  How well I knew the curiosity that made her so intent to gain admission to me.  It was not so much that I dreaded being a spectacle, as the horror and hatred I felt at being approached by her coldness and hypocrisy, while I was so sore and wounded.  I was hardly responsible; I don’t think I could have borne the touch of her hand.