“Who will do so?  Hugh?  Oh, Hermione, how can you speak in such a way?”

“He scolded me before because my poor darling was not strong.  My darling!  How could I help it?  And he scolded me because there was none other but he.  He will turn me out altogether now.  Oh, Mrs. Clavering, you do not know how hard he is.”

Anything was better than this, and therefore Mrs. Clavering asked the poor woman to take her into the room where the little body lay in its little cot.  If she could induce the mother to weep for the child, even that would be better than this hard, persistent fear as to what her husband would say and do.  So they both went and stood together over the little fellow whose short sufferings had thus been brought to an end.  “My poor dear, what can I say to comfort you?” Mrs. Clavering, as she asked this, knew well that no comfort could be spoken in words; but-if she could only make the sufferer weep!

“Comfort!” said the mother.  “There is no comfort now, I believe, in anything.  It is long since I knew any comfort; not since Julia went.”

“Have you written to Julia?”

“No; I have written to no one.  I cannot write.  I feel as though if it were to bring him back again I could not write of it.  My boy! my boy! my boy!” But still there was not a tear in her eye.

“I will write to Julia,” said Mrs. Clavering; “and I will read to you my letter.”

“No, do not read it me.  What is the use?  He has made her quarrel with me.  Julia cares nothing now for me, or for my angel.  Why should she care?  When she came home we would not see her.  Of course she will not care.  Who is there that will care for me?”

“Do not I care for you, Hermione?”

“Yes, because you are here; because of the nearness of the houses.  If you lived far away you would not care for me.  It is just the custom of the thing.”  There was something so true in this that Mrs. Clavering could make no answer to it.  Then they turned to go back into the sitting-room, and as they did so Lady Clavering lingered behind for a moment; but when she was again with Mrs. Clavering her cheek was still dry.

“He will be at the station at nine,” said Lady Clavering.  “They must send the brougham for him, or the dog-cart.  He will be very angry if he is made to come home in the fly from the public-house.”  Then the elder lady left the room and gave orders that Sir Hugh should be met by his carriage.  What must the wife think of her husband, when she feared that he would be angered by little matters at such a time as this!  “Do you think it will make him very unhappy?” Lady Clavering asked.

“Of course it will make him unhappy.  How should it be otherwise?”

“He had said so often that the child would die.  He will have got used to the fear.”

“His grief will be as fresh now as though he had never thought so, and never said so.”

“He is so hard; and then he has such will, such power.  He will thrust it off from him and determine that it shall not oppress him.  I know him so well.”