Left alone in the drawing-room on this terrible night of her second great bereavement, Mrs. Twist was yet able, she was thankful to feel, to resolve she would try to protect her son as long as she could from Clark.  From God she could not, if she would, protect him; but she would try to protect him even now, as she had always protected him, from earthly harm and hurt.  Clark would, however, surely know in time, protect as she might, and judge between her and Edward.  God knew already, and was already judging.  God and Clark....  Poor Edward.

CHAPTER XVIII

The twins, who had gone to bed at half-past nine, shepherded by Edith, in the happy conviction that they had settled down comfortably for some time, were surprised to find at breakfast that they hadn’t.

They had taken a great fancy to Edith, in spite of a want of restfulness on her part that struck them while they were finishing their supper, and to which at last they drew her attention.  She was so kind, and so like Mr. Twist; but though she looked at them with hospitable eyes and wore an expression of real benevolence, it didn’t escape their notice that she seemed to be listening to something that wasn’t, anyhow, them, and to be expecting something that didn’t, anyhow, happen.  She went several times to the door through which her brother and mother had disappeared, and out into whatever part of the house lay beyond it, and when she came back after a minute or two was as wanting in composure as ever.

At last, finding these abrupt and repeated interruptions hindered any real talk, they pointed out to her that reasoned conversation was impossible if one of the parties persisted in not being in the room, and inquired of her whether it were peculiar to her, or typical of the inhabitants of America, to keep on being somewhere else.  Edith smiled abstractedly at them, said nothing, and went out again.

She was longer away this time, and the twins having eaten, among other things, a great many meringues, grew weary of sitting with those they hadn’t eaten lying on the dish in front of them reminding them of those they had.  They wanted, having done with meringues, to get away from them and forget them.  They wanted to go into another room now, where there weren’t any.  Anna-Felicitas felt, and told Anna-Rose who was staring listlessly at the left-over meringues, that it was like having committed murder, and being obliged to go on looking at the body long after you were thoroughly tired of it.  Anna-Rose agreed, and said that she wished now she hadn’t committed meringues,—­anyhow so many of them.

Then at last Edith came back, and told them she was sure they were very tired after their long day, and suggested their going upstairs to their rooms.  The rooms were ready, said Edith, the baggage had come, and she was sure they would like to have nice hot baths and go to bed.