Far more unrefreshed did she arise this morning than on the previous one. The day was beautiful; the morning hot: but Maria seemed to shiver as with ague. Margery had gone on her journey, and Harriet, a maid who waited on Maria, attended to the child. Of course, with Margery away, Miss Meta ran riot in having her own will. She chose to breakfast with her mamma: and her mamma, who saw no particular objection, was not in spirits to oppose it.

She was seated at the table opposite Maria, revelling in coffee and good things, instead of plain bread and milk. A pretty picture, with her golden hair, her soft face, and her flushed cheeks. She wore a delicate pink frock and a white pinafore, the sleeves tied up with a light mauve-coloured ribbon, and her pretty little hands and arms were never still above the table. In the midst of her own enjoyment it appeared that she found leisure to observe that her mamma was taking nothing.

"Mamma, why don't you eat some breakfast?"

"I am not hungry, Meta."

"There's Uncle Thomas!" she resumed.

Uncle Thomas! At half-past eight? But Meta was right. That was Mr.

G.o.dolphin's voice in the hall, speaking to Pierce. A gleam of something like sunshine darted into Maria's heart. His early arrival seemed to whisper of a hope that the Bank would be reopened--though Maria could not have told whence she drew the deduction.

She heard him go into the Bank. But, ere many minutes elapsed, he had come out again, and was knocking at the door of the breakfast-room.

"Come in."

He came in: and a grievous sinking fell upon Maria's heart as she looked at him. In his pale, sad countenance, bearing too evidently the traces of acute mental suffering, she read a death-blow to her hopes. Rising, she held out her hand, without speaking.

"Uncle Thomas, I'm having breakfast here," put in a little intruding voice. "I'm having coffee and egg."

Thomas laid his hand for a moment on the child's head as he pa.s.sed her.

He took a seat a little away from the table, facing Maria, who turned to him.

"Pierce tells me that George is not here."

"He went to London on Sat.u.r.day afternoon," said Maria. "Did you not see him there?"

"No," replied Thomas, speaking very gravely.

"He bade me tell you this morning that he had gone--in case he did not see you himself in town."

"Why has he gone? For what purpose?"

"I do not know," answered Maria. "That was all he said to me."

Thomas had his earnest dark-grey eyes fixed upon her. Their expression did not tend to lessen the sickness at Maria's heart. "What address has he left?"

"He gave me none," replied Maria. "I inferred from what he seemed to intimate that he would be very soon home again. I can scarcely remember what it was he really did say, his departure was so hurried. I knew nothing of it until he had packed his trunk. He said he was going to town on business, and that I was to tell you so on Monday morning."

"What trunk did he take?"

"The large one."

"Then he must be thinking of staying some time."

It was the thought which had several times occurred to Maria. "The trunk was addressed to the railway terminus in London, I remember," she said.

"He did not take it with him. It was sent up by the night train."

"Then, in point of fact, you can give me no information about him: except this?"

"No," she answered, feeling, she could hardly tell why, rather ashamed of having to make the confession. But it was no fault of hers. Thomas G.o.dolphin rose to retire.

"I'm having breakfast with mamma, Uncle Thomas!" persisted the little busy tongue. "Margery's gone for all day. Perhaps I shall have dinner with mamma."

"Hush, Meta!" said Maria, speaking in a sadly subdued manner, as if the chatter, intruding upon their seriousness, were more than she could bear. "Thomas, is the Bank going on again? Will it be opened to-day?"

"It will never go on again," was Thomas G.o.dolphin's answer: and Maria shrank from the lively pain of the tone in which the words were spoken.

There was a blank pause. Maria became conscious that Thomas had turned, and was looking gravely, it may be said searchingly, at her face.

"You have known nothing, I presume, Maria, of--of the state that affairs were getting into? You were not in George's confidence?"

She returned the gaze with honest openness, something like wonder shining forth from her soft brown eyes. "I have known nothing," she answered. "George never spoke to me upon business matters: he never would speak to me upon them."

No; Thomas felt sure that he had not. He was turning again to leave the room, when Maria, her voice a timid one, a delicate blush rising to her cheeks, asked if she could have some money.

"I have none to give you, Maria."

"I expect Mrs. Bond here for her ten-pound note. I don't know what I shall do, unless I can have it to give her. George told me I could have it from you this morning."

Thomas G.o.dolphin did not understand. Maria explained. About her having taken care of the note, and that George had borrowed it on Sat.u.r.day.

Thomas shook his head. He was very sorry, he said, but he could do nothing in it.

"It is not like an ordinary debt," Maria ventured to urge. "It was the woman's own money, intrusted to me for safe keeping on the understanding that she should claim it whenever she pleased. I should be so much obliged to you to let me have it."

"You do not understand me, Maria. It is no want of will on my part. I have not the money."

Maria's colour was gradually receding from her face, leaving in its place something that looked like terror. She would have wished to pour forth question after question--Has all our money gone? Are we quite ruined? Has George done anything very wrong?--but she did not. In her refined sensitiveness she had not the courage to put such questions to Thomas G.o.dolphin: perhaps she had not the courage yet to encounter the probable answers.

Thomas left the room, saying no more. He would not pain her by speaking of the utter ruin which had come upon them, the _disgraceful_ ruin; of the awful trouble looming upon them, in which she must be a sufferer equally with himself; perhaps she the greatest sufferer. Time enough for it. Maria sat down in her place again, a dull mist before her eyes, sorrow in her heart.

"Mamma, I've eaten my egg. I want some of that."

Meta's finger was stretched towards the ham at the foot of the table.

Maria rose mechanically to cut her some. There was no saying this morning, "That is not good for Meta." Her heart was utterly bowed down beyond resistance, or thought of it. She placed some ham on a plate, cut it into small pieces, and laid it before that eager young lady.

"Mamma, I should like some b.u.t.tered roll."

The roll was supplied also. What would not Maria have supplied, if asked for? All these commonplace trifles appeared so pitiably insignificant beside the dreadful trouble come upon them.

"A little more sugar, please, mamma."

Before any answer could be given to this latter demand, either in word or action, a tremendous summons at the hall-door resounded through the house. Maria shrank from its sound. A fear, she knew not of what, had taken up its abode within her, some strange, undefined dread, connected with her husband.

Her poor heart need not have beaten so; her breath need not have been held, her ears strained to listen. Pierce threw open the dining-room door, and there rushed in a lady, all demonstrative sympathy and eagerness. A lady in a handsome light Cashmere shawl, which spread itself over her dress and nearly covered it, and a straw hat, with an upright scarlet plume.

It was Charlotte Pain. She seized Maria's hand and impulsively asked what she could do for her. "I knew it would be so!" she volubly exclaimed--"that you'd be looking like a ghost. That's the worst of you, Mrs. George G.o.dolphin! You let any trifle worry you. The moment I got the letters in this morning, and found how badly things were turning out for your husband, I said to myself, 'There'll be Mrs. George in the dumps!' And I flung this shawl on to cover my toilette, for I was not _en grande tenue_, and came off to cheer you, and see if I could be of any use."

Charlotte flung her shawl _off_ as she spoke, ignoring ceremony. She had taken the chair vacated by Thomas G.o.dolphin, and with a dexterous movement of the hands, the shawl fell behind her, disclosing the "toilette." A washed-out muslin skirt of no particular colour, tumbled, and a little torn; and some strange-looking thing above it, neither jacket nor body, of a bright yellow, the whole dirty and stained.