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That was what had come out for him, on his visitor's entrance, even in the very seconds of suspense that were connecting the fact also directly and intensely with Milly's state. He had come to say he had saved her he had come, as from Mrs. Stringham, to say how she might be saved he had come, in spite of Mrs.
By this time father and mother had come up, and Becky appeared from the farmyard, wheeling the baby in a little wooden cart, and radiant with pleasure at the sight of Aunt Emma, whose godchild she was, so that Milly's disappearance was not noticed.
"Don't apologize, I sha'n't." Ian only came home just in time to scramble into his evening dress-suit for a dinner at the Fletchers'. He needed not to fear delay either from that shirt-button at the back, refractory or on the last thread, or from any other and more insidious trap for the hurrying male. Milly looked after him in a way which, if the makers of traditions concerning wives were not up to their necks in falsehood, must have inspired devotion in the heart of any husband alive. She had already observed that he had been allowed to lose most of the pocket-handkerchiefs she had marked for him in linen thread. That trifles such as this should cause bitterness will seem as absurd to sensible persons as it would to be told that our lives are made up of mere to-morrows if Shakespeare had not happened to put that in his own memorable way. For it takes a vast deal of imagination to embrace the ordinary facts of life and human nature. But even the most sensible will understand that it was annoying for Milly regularly to find her own and the family purse reduced to a state that demanded rigid economy. The Invader, stirring in that limbo where she lay, might have answered that rigid economy was Milly's forte and real delight, and that it was well she should have nothing to spend in ridiculously disguising the fair body they were condemned to share. Mildred certainly left behind her social advantages which both Ian and Milly enjoyed without exactly realizing their source, while her bric-
No one spoke further. John threw his cigar into the road. Under the rug Leonora could feel the knees of all her daughters as they sat huddled and limp with fatigue in the small body of the waggonette. Her shoulders touched Ethel's, and every one of Milly's fidgety movements communicated itself to her.
George's fingers as they touched her dress in passing and giving him a look which was meant to keep him in order for a few moments, "no one can nurse you as well as I can ask Dacre let me take off that bandage and put it on again more comfortably for you! Will you, dear Mr. Joseph?" Mr. Joseph groaned and hid his face against Milly's heaving breast.
I own I don't altogether understand the taste for frivolities which you have developed since you married. It's harmless, no doubt, but it doesn't seem quite natural in a young woman who has taken a First in Greats." Milly's hands grasped the arms of her chair convulsively. She looked at her aunt with desolation in her dark-ringed eyes.
So the mid-day meal, which seemed to Milly poor and forlorn compared with what she had known in her life, was a revelation to Ernestine of social grace and daintiness. Her keen eyes followed Milly's every motion, and she noted how each dish, and spoon, and fork was placed. All this, she realized, was what she had been after and failed to get.
Milly's own private affairs in connection with a good-looking fellow, formerly a gardener at Bowness, now recently enlisted in one of the Border regiments had caused her to take a special interest in the information, and had perhaps led her to put a bunch of monthly roses on Mrs. Sarratt's dressing-table. Miss Cookson hadn't bothered herself about flowers.
But I had only just begun to stammer out my appeal when there came a sharp tapping at the door. "Let us in let us in!" Milly's voice cried, and Mrs. Dalziel quaveringly repeated the same words. I shot back the bolt, and the two in their nightgowns almost fell into the room. Milly, crying, seized me in her arms and begged me to forgive her for all her unkindness to me.
By some strange accident the methodical Milly's teapot was absent from its place; a phenomenon for which Tims was thankful, as it imposed upon her the necessity of leaving her patient for a few minutes. Shaking her finger again at Milly still more emphatically, she went out, and locked the door behind her. After a moment's thought, she reluctantly decided to report the matter to Miss Burt.
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