She laughed and shook her head, and went upstairs. How long the few stairs seemed! Or was it that her legs seemed to have become like lead?

As she pa.s.sed Mrs. Lorton's room, that lady's voice called to her. Nell opened the door, leaning against it.

"Is that you, Eleanor?" said Mrs. Lorton. "What a noise you made coming in! Really, I think you might have shown some consideration. You know how lightly I sleep. I've the news for you." There was a touch of self-satisfaction in her voice. "A letter has come. Here it is. You had better read it and think over it."

Nell crossed the room unsteadily in the dim flicker of the night light, and took the letter held out to her--took it mechanically--wished Mrs.

Lorton good night, and went to her own room.

Before she had got there she had forgotten the letter, and it fell from her hand as she dropped on her knees beside the bed, her arms flung wide over the white counterpane, her whole frame shaking.

"Drake, Drake, Drake!" rose from her quivering lips. "Oh, G.o.d! pity me--pity me! I cannot bear it--I cannot bear it!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

Nell woke with that sickening sense of loss which all of us have experienced--that is, all of us who have gone to bed with sorrow lying heavily upon our hearts. The autumnal sun was pouring in through the windows, the birds were singing; some of them waiting on the tree outside for the crumbs which Nell had been in the habit, ever since she was a child, of throwing to them. Even in her misery of last night she had not forgotten the birds; in the misery of her awakening she remembered them, and went unsteadily to the lattice window.

The keen air, as it blew upon her face, brought the full consciousness of the sorrow that had befallen her.

Yesterday morning she was the happiest girl in all the world; this morning she was the most wretched.

She put her hands to her face, as if some one had struck her, and she called all her woman's courage to meet and combat her trouble. The bright world seemed pressing down upon her heavily, the shrill notes of the birds clamoring their grat.i.tude as they greedily fought for the crumbs, pierced through her head. She swayed to and fro, as if she were about to fall; for, in the young, mental anguish produces an absolute physical pain, and her head as well as her heart was aching.

She would have liked to have thrown herself upon the bed, but d.i.c.k would be clamoring for his breakfast presently, and Mrs. Lorton would want her chocolate. Life is a big wheel, and one has to push it round, though its edges are set with spikes of steel, and our hands are torn in the effort to keep it moving.

As she dressed herself with trembling hands, she kept saying to herself--her lips quivering with the unspoken words:

"I have lost Drake--I have lost Drake; I have got to bear it!"

He would be here presently--or, perhaps, he would not come. Perhaps he would write to her. And yet, no; that would not be like him; he was no coward; he would come and tell her the truth, would ask her to forgive him.

And what should she say? Yes; she would forgive him; she would make no "scene" with him; she would not utter one word of reproach, but just tell him that he was free. She would even smile, if she could; would a.s.sure him that she was not going to break her heart because the woman he had loved before he had met her--Nell--had won him back. After all, he was not to blame. How could any man resist such a woman as Lady Luce?

She--Nell--was just an interlude in his life's story; he had thought himself in love with her; and, perhaps, if this beautiful creature, before whom all hearts seemed to go down, had not desired to lure him back, he would have remained faithful to the "little girl" whom he had chanced to meet at that "out-of-the-way place in Devonshire, don't you know." Nell could almost hear Lady Luce referring to the episode in these terms, if ever it should come to her ears.

No; there should be no scene. She would give him both her hands, would say "good-by" quite calmly, and would then take her broken heart to the solitude of her own room, and try to begin to repair it.

d.i.c.k shouted for his breakfast, and she went downstairs. He was busy reading a letter, and his face was full of eagerness, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I say, Nell, what a good chap Drake is!" he exclaimed. "He never said a word to me about it; but he's been worrying Bardsley & Bardsley for weeks past, and they've written to say that they think they can take me on. Just think of it! Bardsley & Bardsley! The biggest firm in the engineering line! Drake must have a great deal of influence; and I don't know how on earth he managed it. I didn't know he knew any one connected with the profession. It's a most splendid chance, you know!"

Nell went round beside him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"I am very glad, d.i.c.k," she said.

Something in her voice must have struck him, for he looked up at her quickly, and with surprise.

"Why, what's the matter, Nell?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I have a headache."

"Just so. 'After the opera is over,' you know. That's the penalty one pays for one's first dance. And you were queer last night, too, weren't you? Why didn't you lie in bed?"

"Never mind me," said Nell. "Tell me about this letter. When are you going, d.i.c.k?"

A fresh pang smote her. Was she going to lose the boy as well?

"Oh, they don't say," he replied. "They're going to let me know. They may send me abroad; you can't tell. What a good chap Drake is, and what a lot we owe him? Upon my word, Nell, you're a lucky girl to have got hold of such a fellow for your young man."

Nell turned away with a sickening pain about her heart. No; she would not tell the boy at this moment. She wouldn't spoil his happiness with the wet blanket of her own misery. She must even, when she came to tell him, make light of the broken engagement, take the blame upon herself, and prevent any rupture of the friendship between Drake and d.i.c.k.

He was almost too excited to eat any breakfast; certainly too excited to notice Nell's untouched cup and plate.

"I must see Drake about this at once," he said. "I think I'll go down and meet him. He's sure to be coming up here, isn't he?" he added, with a bantering smile; and Nell actually tried to smile back at him.

As she took the chocolate up to Mrs. Lorton, she tried to put her own trouble out of her head, and to think only of d.i.c.k's good fortune. How she had longed for some such chance as this to come to the boy, and now it had come. But who had sent it? Drake! Well, all the more reason that she should forgive him, and utter no word of reproach or bitterness.

"You are ten minutes late, Eleanor!" said Mrs. Lorton peevishly. "And, good heavens! what a sight you look! If one late night has this effect upon you, what would half a dozen have? I am quite sure that I never looked half as haggard and colorless as you do, even when I'd been through a whole season." For a moment the good lady was quite convinced that she had been a fashionable belle. "I should advise you to keep out of Drake's sight for an hour or two; at any rate, until you have got some color in your face, and your eyes have ceased to look like boiled gooseberries."

The mention of Drake brought the color to Nell's face quickly enough, but for an instant only. It was white again, as she resolved to tell Mrs. Lorton that the engagement was broken off.

"It doesn't matter, mamma," she said; and she tried to smile.

Mrs. Lorton stared at her over the chocolate.

"Doesn't matter?" she echoed. "You think he's so madly in love with you that it doesn't matter how you look, I suppose? Don't lay that flattering unction to your soul, Eleanor. I've known many an engagement broken off in consequence of the man coming suddenly upon the girl when she had a bad cold and had got a red nose and eyes."

"Perhaps I've had a bad cold without knowing it, mamma, and Drake must have come upon me when my nose and eyes were appallingly red, for our engagement--is--broken--off."

Mrs. Lorton nearly dropped the cup of chocolate, and stared and gasped like a fish out of water.

"Broken off!" she exclaimed. "Take this cup away! Give me the sal volatile. Open the window! No, don't open the window! What are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?"

Nell took the cup, got the sal volatile, and soothed the fl.u.s.tered woman in a mechanical fashion.

"Hush, hush, mamma!" she said. "I don't want d.i.c.k to know yet."

"But why--how----What have you been doing?" demanded Mrs. Lorton; and Nell could have laughed.

"Nothing very bad, mamma," she said.

"But you must have," insisted Mrs. Lorton. "Of course it's your fault."

"Is it absolutely necessary that there should be any fault?" said Nell wearily. "But let us say that it is my fault. Perhaps it is!" She laughed unconsciously, and with a touch of bitterness. "What does it matter whose fault it is? The reason isn't of any consequence at all; the fact is the only important thing, and it is a fact that our engagement is broken. It was broken last night, and I tell you at once, mamma; and I want to beg you not to ask me any questions. Drake--Mr.

Vernon--will no doubt go away to-day, and we shan't see him any more."

She went to the window to arrange the blind, and Mrs. Lorton didn't see the twitching of the white lips which spoke so calmly. "And I want to forget him; I want you, too, to try and forget him, and not to remind me of him by a single word. It was very foolish, my thinking that he cared for me----Oh, I can't say another word----"