A sound behind them made Lady Lucy turn round.  Brown was coming over the grass.

“A telegram, sir, for you.  Your coachman stopped the boy and sent him here.”

Marsham opened it hastily.  As he read it his gray and haggard face flushed again heavily.

     “Awful news just reached me.  Deepest sympathy with you and
     yours.  Should be grateful if I might see you to-day.

     “BROADSTONE.”

He handed it to his mother, but Lady Lucy scarcely took in the sense of it.  When he left her to write his answer, she sat on in the July sun which had now reached the chairs, mechanically drawing her large country hat forward to shield her from its glare—­a forlorn figure, with staring absent eyes; every detail of her sharp slenderness, her blanched and quivering face, the elegance of her black dress, the diamond fastening the black lace hat-strings tied under her pointed chin—­set in the full and searching illumination of mid-day.  It showed her an old woman—­left alone.

Her whole being rebelled against what had happened to her.  Life without John’s letters, John’s homage, John’s sympathy—­how was it to be endured?  Disguises that shrouded her habitual feelings and instincts even from herself dropped away.  That Oliver was left to her did not make up to her in the least for John’s death.

The smart that held her in its grip was a new experience.  She had never felt it at the death of the imperious husband, to whom she had been, nevertheless, decorously attached.  Her thoughts clung to those last broken words under her hand, trying to wring from them something that might content and comfort her remorse: 

     “DEAR LUCY,—­I feel ill—­it may be nothing—­Chide and you may
     read this letter.  Broadstone couldn’t help it.  Tell him so. 
     Bless you—­Tell Oliver—­Yours, J.F.”

The greater part of the letter was all but illegible even by her—­but the “bless you” and the “J.F.” were more firmly written than the rest, as though the failing hand had made a last effort.

Her spiritual vanity was hungry and miserable.  Surely, though she would not be his wife, she had been John’s best friend!—­his good angel.  Her heart clamored for some warmer, gratefuller word—­that might justify her to herself.  And, instead, she realized for the first time the desert she had herself created, the loneliness she had herself imposed.  And with prophetic terror she saw in front of her the daily self-reproach that her self-esteem might not be able to kill.

“Tell Oliver—­”

Did it mean “if I die, tell Oliver”?  But John never said anything futile or superfluous in his life.  Was it not rather the beginning of some last word to Oliver that he could not finish?  Oh, if her son had indeed contributed to his death!

She shivered under the thought; hurrying recollections of Mr. Barrington’s visit, of the Herald article of that morning, of Oliver’s speeches and doings during the preceding month, rushing through her mind.  She had already expressed her indignation about the Herald article to Oliver that morning, on the drive which had been so tragically interrupted.