23.  Ethelberta’s house (continued)

Picotee was heard on the stairs:  Ethelberta covered her face.

‘Is he waiting?’ she said faintly, on finding that Picotee did not begin to speak.

‘No; he is gone,’ said Picotee.

‘Ah, why is that?’ came quickly from under the handkerchief.  ’He has forgotten me—­that’s what it is!’

‘O no, he has not!’ said Picotee, just as bitterly.

Ethelberta had far too much heroism to let much in this strain escape her, though her sister was prepared to go any lengths in the same.  ’I suppose,’ continued Ethelberta, in the quiet way of one who had only a headache the matter with her, ’that he remembered you after the meeting at Anglebury?’

‘Yes, he remembered me.’

‘Did you tell me you had seen him before that time?’

‘I had seen him at Sandbourne.  I don’t think I told you.’

‘At whose house did you meet him?’

‘At nobody’s.  I only saw him sometimes,’ replied Picotee, in great distress.

Ethelberta, though of all women most miserable, was brimming with compassion for the throbbing girl so nearly related to her, in whom she continually saw her own weak points without the counterpoise of her strong ones.  But it was necessary to repress herself awhile:  the intended ways of her life were blocked and broken up by this jar of interests, and she wanted time to ponder new plans.  ’Picotee, I would rather be alone now, if you don’t mind,’ she said.  ’You need not leave me any light; it makes my eyes ache, I think.’

Picotee left the room.  But Ethelberta had not long been alone and in darkness when somebody gently opened the door, and entered without a candle.

‘Berta,’ said the soft voice of Picotee again, ‘may I come in?’

‘O yes,’ said Ethelberta.  ’Has everything gone right with the house this evening?’

’Yes; and Gwendoline went out just now to buy a few things, and she is going to call round upon father when he has got his dinner cleared away.’

’I hope she will not stay and talk to the other servants.  Some day she will let drop something or other before father can stop her.’

‘O Berta!’ said Picotee, close beside her.  She was kneeling in front of the couch, and now flinging her arm across Ethelberta’s shoulder and shaking violently, she pressed her forehead against her sister’s temple, and breathed out upon her cheek: 

’I came in again to tell you something which I ought to have told you just now, and I have come to say it at once because I am afraid I shan’t be able to to-morrow.  Mr. Julian was the young man I spoke to you of a long time ago, and I should have told you all about him, but you said he was your young man too, and—­and I didn’t know what to do then, because I thought it was wrong in me to love your young man; and Berta, he didn’t mean me to love him at all, but I did it myself, though I did not want to do it, either; it would come to me!  And I didn’t know he belonged to you when I began it, or I would not have let him meet me at all; no I wouldn’t!’