"Ah! how it all comes back to me, my lamb," she sobbed. "He's just the
same, only older. Hard and kind and generous and never understanding a
thing that mattered to your poor, beautiful mother. Oh! she was glad to
go at the end, but for leaving you. Dear lady!--all borne to pay your
father's debts, which Mr. Anderton had took up. I can't never forgive
him quite--I can't never."
And Halcyone, overcome with her long strain of emotion, cried, too, for
a few minutes before she could resume her stern self-control.
But at dinner she was calm again, and pale only for the shadows under
her wide eyes.
She had written her letter to Cheiron--she knew not of such things as
messenger-boys or cabs, and had got Priscilla to post it for her, and
now with enforced quiet awaited his answer which she thought she could
receive on the morrow.
"There has been a crisis in the Cabinet, has there not?" she said to her
stepfather, hoping to hear something, and James Anderton replied that
there had been some split--but for his part, the sooner this rotten lot
of sleepers had gone out the better he would be pleased; a good sound
Radical he was, like his friend Mr.
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