第78章

For the first time in her life, when the bright sun shone into her room, Beatrice turned her face to the wall and dreaded the sight of day. The post-bag would leave the hall at nine in the morning--Hugh would have the letter at noon. Until then she was safe.

Noon came and went, but the length of the summer's day brought nothing save fresh misery. At every unusual stir, every loud peal of the bell, every quick footstep, she turned pale, and her heart seemed to die within her.

Lady Earle watched her with anxious eyes. She could not understand the change that had come over the brilliant young girl who had used to be the life of the house. Every now and then she broke out into wild feverish gayety. Lillian saw that something ailed her sister--she could not tell what.

For the fiftieth time that day, when the hall door bell sounded, Beatrice looked up with trembling lips she vainly tried to still.

At last Lady Earle took the burning hands in her own.

"My dear child," she said, "you will have a nervous fever if you go on in this way. What makes you start at every noise? You look as though you were waiting for something dreadful to happen."

"No one ever called me nervous," replied Beatrice, with a smile, controlling herself with an effort; "mamma's chief complaint against me was that I had no nerves;" adding presently to herself: "This can not last. I would rather die at once that live in this agony."

The weary day came to a close, however, and it was well for Beatrice that Lord Airlie had not spent it with her. The gentlemen at Earlescourt had all gone to a bachelor's dinner, given by old Squire Newton of the Grange. It was late when they returned, and Lord Airlie did not notice anything unusual in Beatrice.

"I call this a day wasted," he said, as he bade her goodnight;

"for it has been a day spent away from you. I thought it would never come to an end."

She sighed, remembering what a dreary day it had been to her.

Could she live through such another? Half the night she lay awake, wondering if Hugh's answer to her letter would come by the first post, and whether Lord Earle would say anything if he noticed another letter from Brookfield. Fortune favored her. In the morning Lord Earle was deeply engrossed by a story Lionel was telling, and asked Beatrice to open the bag for him. She again saw a hated blue envelope bearing her own name. When all the other letters were distributed, she slipped hers into the pocket of her dress, without any one perceiving the action.

Breakfast was over at last; and leaving Lord Airlie talking to Lillian, Beatrice hastened to read the letter. None of Hugh's anger was there set down; but if she had cared for him her heart must have ached at the pathos of his simple words. He had received her note, he said--the note so unworthy of her--and hastened to tell her that he was obliged to go to London on some important business connected with his ship, and that he should be absent three weeks. He would write to her at once on his return, and he should insist upon seeing her then, as well as exact the fulfillment of her promise.

It was a respite; much might happen in three weeks. She tore the letter into shreds, and felt as though relieved of a deadly weight. If time could but be gained, she thought--if something could happen to urge on her marriage with Hubert Airlie before Hugh returned! At any rate, for the moment she was free.