The old lady threw herself back in her chair, not affectedly at all, but looking so awfully haggard and agitated that Beatrix was frightened.
"Call nobody, there's a darling; just open the window; I shall be better."
And she heaved some of those long and heavy sighs which relieve hysterical oppression; and, after a long silence, she said--
"It is a long time since I have felt so ill, Beatrix. Remember this, darling, my papers are in the black cabinet in my bed-room at home--I mean Wardlock. There is not a great deal. My jointure stops, you know; but whatever little there is, is for you, darling."
"You're not to talk of it, granny, darling, you'll be quite well in a minute; the air is doing you good. May I give you a little wine?--Well, a little water?"
"Thanks, dear; I _am_ better. Remember what I told you, and particularly your promise to mention what you heard to no one. I mean the--the--strange scene with that young man. I think I will take a glass of wine. I'll tell you all when I'm better--when Monsieur Varbarriere comes back. It is important for a time, especially having heard what I have, that I should wait a little."
Granny sipped a little sherry slowly, and the tint of life, such as visits the cheek of the aged, returned to hers, and she was better.
"I'd rather not see him any more. It's all like a dream. I don't know what to make of it," muttered granny; and she began audibly to repeat passages, tremblingly and with upturned eyes, from her prayer-book.
Perplexed, anxious, excited, Beatrix looked down on the collapsed and haggard face of the old lady, and listened to the moaned petition, "Lord, have mercy upon us!" which trembled from her lips as it might from those of a fainting sinner on a death-bed.
Guy Deverell, as I shall henceforward call him, thinking of nothing but escape into solitude, was soon a good way from the house. He was too much agitated, and his thoughts too confused at first, to estimate all the possible consequences of the sudden disclosure he had just made.
What would Varbarriere, who could be stern and violent, say or do, when he learned it? Here was the one injunction on which he had been ever harping violated. He felt how much he owed to the unceasing care of that able and disinterested friend through all his life, and how had he repaid it all!