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Thus forewarned, Vizard, in due course, paid his second visit to Ina Klosking. He found her propped up with pillows this time. She begged him to be seated. She had evidently something on her mind, and her nurses watched her like cats. "You are fond of music, sir?" "Not of all music. I adore good music, I hate bad, and I despise mediocre. Silence is golden, indeed, compared with poor music."
As he disappeared, a lady came slowly and pensively forward from the outer door; lifted her eyes as she neared the table, saw a vacant chair, and glided into it, revealing to Zoe Vizard and her party a noble face, not so splendid and animated as on the stage, for its expression was slumbering; still it was the face of Ina Klosking.
While she sat there, propped high, and inhaling the pure air, Vizard conveyed his little choir, by another staircase, into the antechamber; and, under his advice, they avoided preludes and opened in full chorus with Jackson's song of praise. At the first burst of sacred harmony, Ina Klosking was observed to quiver all over.
But this time he came up to Rhoda Gale, and asked her whether a penitent man might pay his respects to her in the morning. She said she believed there were very few penitents in the world. "I know one," said he. "Well, I don't, then," said the virago. "But you can come, if you are not afraid." Of course Ina Klosking knew of this appointment two minutes after it was made.
Vizard returned, and found Mademoiselle Klosking walking on his gravel. He offered her his arm, and was a happy man, parading her very slowly, and supporting her steps, and purring his congratulations into her ear. "Suppose I were to invite you to dinner, what would you say?" "I think I should say, 'To-morrow." "And a very good answer, too. To-morrow shall be a fete." "You spoil me?"
But he soon came back to his wretched home, and eyed the dismal scene, and the havoc one man had made the marble floor all stained with blood Ina Klosking supported in a chair, white, and faintly moaning Zoe still crushed and glaring at vacancy, and Fanny sobbing round her with pity and terror; for she knew there must be worse to come than this wild stupor.
The carriage was drawn up, Ashmead opened the door in a trice, and La Klosking, followed by Vizard, stepped out, and stood like a statue before Edward Severne and Zoe Vizard. Severne dropped her arm directly, and was panic-stricken.
"Oh, Harrington will never punish him, if he keeps his distance; but he has advertised in all the papers, warning him that if he sets foot in Barfordshire he will be arrested and sent to prison." Ina Klosking shook her head. "When a man is in love with such a woman as that, dangers could hardly deter him." "That depends upon the man, I think. But Harrington has done better than that.
Now the truth was that Zoe was trying to soothe her conscience with elegant praises of the man she had dismissed, and felt guilty. Ina Klosking said little. She was puzzled too at first. She asked to see Zoe's handwriting. The letter was handed to her. She studied the characters. "It is a good hand," she said; "nothing mean there." And she gave it back.
"What are you talking about, Miss Dover? I do just know Mademoiselle Klosking; I met her in society in Vienna, two years ago: but that cad I commissioned to bet for me I never saw before in my life. You are keeping me on tenter-hooks. My money my money my money! If you have a heart in your bosom, tell me what became of my money."
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