On the second Monday an incident occurred. In the afternoon Mr. Sutton had asked Beatrice to go with him to Port St. Mary, and she had refused on the plea that the light was of a suitable grey for painting. Mr. Sutton had slipped off alone, unseen by Anna and Henry, who had meant to accompany him in place of Beatrice. Before tea, while Anna, Beatrice and Henry were awaiting the meal in the parlour, Mynors referred to the matter.
'I hope you've done some decent work this afternoon,' he said to Beatrice.
'I haven't,' she replied shortly; 'I haven't done a stroke.'
'But you said you were going to paint hard!'
'Well, I didn't.'
'Then why couldn't you have gone to Port St. Mary, instead of breaking your fond father's heart by a refusal?'
'He didn't want me, really.'
Anna interjected: 'I think he did, Bee.'
'You know you're very self-willed, not to say selfish,' Mynors said.
'No, I'm not,' Beatrice protested seriously. 'Am I, Anna?'
'Well – ' Anna tried to think of a diplomatic pronouncement. Beatrice took offence at the hesitation.
'Oh! You two are bound to agree, of course. You're as thick as thieves.'
She gazed steadily out of the window, and there was a silence. Mynors' lip curled.
'Oh! There's the loveliest yacht just coming into the bay,' Beatrice cried suddenly, in a tone of affected enthusiasm. 'I'm going out to sketch it.' She snatched up her hat and sketching-block, and ran hastily from the room. The other two saw her sitting on the grass, sharpening a pencil. The yacht, a large and luxurious craft, had evidently come to anchor for the night.
Mrs. Sutton arrived from her bedroom, and then Mr. Sutton also came in. Tea was served. Mynors called to Beatrice through the window and received no reply. Then Mrs. Sutton summoned her.
'Go on with your tea,' Beatrice shouted, without turning her head. 'Don't wait for me. I'm bound to finish this now.'
'Fetch her, Anna dear,' said Mrs. Sutton after another interval. Anna rose to obey, half-fearful.
'Aren't you coming in, Bee?' She stood by the sketcher's side, and observed nothing but a few meaningless lines on the block.
'Didn't you hear what I said to mother?'
Anna retired in discomfiture.
Tea was finished. They went out, but kept at a discreet distance from the artist, who continued to use her pencil until dusk had fallen. Then they returned to the sitting-room, where a fire had been lighted, and Beatrice at length followed. As the others sat in a circle round the fire, Beatrice, who occupied the sofa in solitude, gave a shiver.
'Beatrice, you've taken cold,' said her mother, sitting out there like that.'
'Oh, nonsense, mother – what a fidget you are!'
'A fidget I certainly am not, my darling, and that you know very well. As you've had no tea, you shall have some gruel at once, and go to bed and get warm.'
'Oh no, mother!' But Mrs. Sutton was resolved, and in half an hour she had taken Beatrice to bed and tucked her up.
When Anna went to the bedroom Beatrice was awake.
'Can't you sleep?' she inquired kindly.
'No,' said Beatrice, in a feeble voice, 'I'm restless, somehow.'
'I wonder if it's influenza,' said Mrs. Sutton, on the following morning, when she learnt from Anna that Beatrice had had a bad night, and would take breakfast in bed. She carried the invalid's food upstairs herself. 'I hope it isn't influenza,' she said later. 'The girl is very hot.'
'You haven't a clinical thermometer?' Mynors suggested.
'Go, see if you can buy one at the little chemist's,' she replied eagerly. In a few minutes he came back with the instrument.
'She's at over a hundred,' Mrs. Sutton reported, having used the thermometer. 'What do you say, father? Shall we send for a doctor? I'm not so set up with doctors as a general rule,' she added, as if in defence, to Anna. 'I brought Beatrice through measles and scarlet fever without a doctor – we never used to think of having a doctor in those days for ordinary ailments; but influenza – that's different. Eh, I dread it; you never know how it will end. And poor Beatrice had such a bad attack last Martinmas.'
'If you like, I'll run for a doctor now,' said Mynors.
'Let be till to-morrow,' the Alderman decided. 'We'll see how she goes on. Happen it's nothing but a cold.'
'Yes,' assented Mrs. Sutton; 'it's no use crying out before you're hurt.'
Anna was struck by the placidity with which they covered their apprehension. Towards noon, Beatrice, who said that she felt better, insisted on rising. A fire was lighted at once in the parlour, and she sat in front of it till tea-time, when she was obliged to go to bed again. On the Wednesday morning, after a night which had been almost sleepless for both girls, her temperature stood at 103°, and Henry fetched the doctor, who pronounced it a case of influenza, severe, demanding very careful treatment. Instantly the normal movement of the household was changed. The sickroom became a mysterious centre round which everything revolved, and the parlour, without the alteration of a single chair, took on a deserted, forlorn appearance. Meals were eaten like the passover, with loins girded for any sudden summons. Mrs. Sutton and Anna, as nurses, grew important in the eyes of the men, who instinctively effaced themselves, existing only like messenger-boys whose business it is to await a call. Yet there was no alarm, flurry, nor excitement. In the evening the doctor returned. The patient's temperature had not fallen. It was part of the treatment that a medicine should be administered every two hours with absolute regularity, and Mrs. Sutton said that she should sit up through the night.
'I shall do that,' said Anna.
'Nay, I won't hear of it,' Mrs. Sutton replied, smiling.
But the three men (the doctor had remained to chat in the parlour), recognising Anna's capacity and reliability, and perhaps impressed also by her business-like appearance as, arrayed in a white apron, she stood with firm lips before them, gave a unanimous decision against Mrs. Sutton.
'We'st have you ill next, lass,' said the Alderman to his wife; 'and that'll never do.'
'Well,' Mrs. Sutton surrendered, 'if I can leave her to anyone, it's Anna.'
Mynors smiled appreciatively.
On the Thursday morning there was still no sign of recovery. The temperature was 104°, and the patient slightly delirious. Anna left the sickroom at eight o'clock to preside at breakfast, and Mrs. Sutton took her place.
'You look tired, my dear,' said the Alderman affectionately.
'I feel perfectly well,' she replied with cheerfulness.
'And you aren't afraid of catching it?' Mynors asked.
'Afraid?' she said; 'there's no fear of me catching it.'
'How do you know?'
'I know, that's all. I'm never ill.'
'That's the right way to keep well,' the Alderman remarked.
The quiet admiration of these two men was very pleasant to her. She felt that she had established herself for ever in their esteem. After breakfast, in obedience to them, she slept for several hours on Mrs. Sutton's bed. In the afternoon Beatrice was worse. The doctor called, and found her temperature at 105°.
'This can't last,' he remarked briefly.
'Well, Doctor,' Mr. Sutton said, 'it's i' your hands.'
'Nay,' Mrs. Sutton murmured with a smile, 'I've left it with God. It's with Him.'
This was the first and only word of religion, except grace at table, that Anna heard from the Suttons during her stay in the Isle of Man. She had feared lest vocal piety might form a prominent feature of their daily life, but her fear had proved groundless. She, too, from reason rather than instinct, had tried to pray for Beatrice's recovery. She had, however, found much more satisfaction in the activity of nursing.
Again that night she sat up, and on the Friday morning Beatrice was better. At noon all immediate danger was past; the patient slept; her temperature was almost correct. Anna went to bed in the afternoon and slept soundly till supper-time, when she awoke very hungry. For the first time in three days Beatrice could be left alone. The other four had supper together, cheerful and relieved after the tension.
'She'll be as right as a trivet in a few days,' said the Alderman.
'A few weeks,' said Mrs. Sutton.
'Of course,' said Mynors, 'you'll stay on here, now?'
'We shall stay until Beatrice is quite fit to travel,' Mr. Sutton answered. 'I might have to run over to th' Five Towns for a day or two middle of next week, but I can come back immediately.'
'Well, I must go tomorrow,' Mynors sighed.
'Surely you can stay over Sunday, Henry?'
'No; I've no one to take my place at school.'
'And I must go to-morrow, too,' said Anna suddenly.
'Fiddle-de-dee, Anna!' the Alderman protested.
'I must,' she insisted. 'Father will expect me. You know I came for a fortnight. Besides, there's Agnes.'
'Agnes will be all right.'
'I must go.' They saw that she was fixed.
'Won't a short walk do you good?' Mynors suggested to her, with singular gravity, after supper. 'You've not been outside for two days.'
She looked inquiringly at Mrs. Sutton.
'Yes, take her, Henry; she'll sleep better for it. Eh, Anna, but it's a shame to send you home with those rings round your eyes.'
She went upstairs for a jacket. Beatrice was awake. 'Anna,' she exclaimed in a weak voice, without any preface, 'I was awfully silly and cross the other afternoon, before all this business. Just now, when you came into the room, I was feeling quite ashamed.'
'Oh! Bee!' she answered, bending over her, 'what nonsense! Now go off to sleep at once.' She was very happy. Beatrice, victim of a temperament which had the childishness and the impulsiveness of the artist without his higher and sterner traits, sank back in facile content.
The night was still and very dark. When Anna and Mynors got outside they could distinguish neither the sky nor the sea; but the faint, restless murmur of the sea came up the cliffs. Only the lights of the houses disclosed the direction of the road.
'Suppose we go down to the jetty, and then along as far as the breakwater?' he said, and she concurred. 'Won't you take my muffler – again?' he added, pulling this ever-present article from his pocket.
'No, thanks,' she said, almost coldly, 'it's really quite warm.' She regarded the offer of the muffler as an indiscretion – his sole indiscretion during their acquaintance. As they walked down the hill to the shore she though how Beatrice's illness had sharply interrupted their relations. If she had come to the Isle of Man with a vague idea that he would possibly propose to her, the expectation was disappointed; but she felt no disappointment. She felt that events had lifted her to a higher plane than that of love-making. She was filled with the proud satisfaction of a duty accomplished. She did not seek to minimise to herself the fact that she had been of real value to her friends in the last few days, had probably saved Mrs. Sutton from illness, had certainly laid them all under an obligation. Their gratitude, unexpressed, but patent on each face, gave her infinite pleasure. She had won their respect by the manner in which she had risen to the height of an emergency that demanded more than devotion. She had proved, not merely to them but to herself, that she could be calm under stress, and could exert moral force when occasion needed. Such were the joyous and exultant reflections which passed through her brain – unnaturally active in the factitious wakefulness caused by excessive fatigue. She was in an extremely nervous and excitable condition – and never guessed it, fancying indeed that her emotions were exceptionally tranquil that night. She had not begun to realise the crisis through which she had just lived.
The uneven road to the ruined breakwater was quite deserted. Having reached the limit of the path, they stood side by side, solitary, silent, gazing at the black and gently heaving surface of the sea. The eye was foiled by the intense gloom; the ear could make nothing of the strange night-noises of the bay and the ocean beyond; but the imagination was stimulated by the appeal of all this mystery and darkness. Never had the water seemed so wonderful, terrible, and austere.
'We are going away to-morrow,' he said at length.
Anna started and shook with apprehension at the tremor in his voice. She had read that a woman was always well warned by her instincts when a man meant to propose to her. But here was the proposal imminent, and she had not suspected. In a flash of insight she perceived that the very event which had separated them for three days had also impelled the lover forward in his course. It was the thought of her vigils, her fortitude, her compassion, that had fanned the flame. She was not surprised, only made uncomfortable, when he took her hand.
'Anna,' he said, 'it's no use making a long story of it. I'm tremendously in love with you; you know I am.'
He stepped back, still holding her hand. She could say nothing.
'Well?' he ventured. 'Didn't you know?'
'I thought – I thought,' she murmured stupidly, 'I thought you liked me.'
'I can't tell you how I admire you. I'm not going to praise you to your face, but I simply never met anyone like you. From the very first moment I saw you, it was the same. It's something in your face, Anna – Anna, will you be my wife?'
The actual question was put in a precise, polite, somewhat conventional tone. To Anna he was never more himself than at that moment.
She could not speak; she could not analyse her feelings; she could not even think. She was adrift. At last she stammered: 'We've only known each other – '
'Oh, dear,' he exclaimed masterfully, 'what does that matter? If it had been a dozen years instead of one, that would have made no difference.' She drew her hand timidly away, but he took it again. She felt that he dominated her and would decide for her. 'Say yes.'
'Yes,' she said.
She saw pictures of her career as his wife, and resolved that one of the first acts of her freedom should be to release Agnes from the more ignominious of her father's tyrannies.
They walked home almost in silence. She was engaged, then. Yet she experienced no new sensation. She felt as she had felt on the way down, except that she was sorely perturbed. There was no ineffable rapture, no ecstatic bliss. Suddenly the prospect of happiness swept over her like a flood.
At the gate she wished to make a request to him, but hesitated, because she could not bring herself to use his Christian name. It was proper for her to use his Christian name, however, and she would do so, or perish.
'Henry,' she said, 'don't tell anyone here.' He merely kissed her once more. She went straight upstairs.
CHAPTER XI
THE DOWNFALL
In order to catch the Liverpool steamer at Douglas it was necessary to leave Port Erin at half-past six in the morning. The freshness of the morning, and the smiles of the Alderman and his wife as they waved God-speed from the doorstep, filled Anna with a serene content which she certainly had not felt during the wakeful night. She forgot, then, the hours passed with her conscience in realising how serious and solemn a thing was this engagement, made in an instant on the previous evening. All that remained in her mind, as she and Henry walked quickly down the road, was the tonic sensation of high resolves to be a worthy wife. The duties, rather than the joys, of her condition, had lain nearest her heart until that moment of setting out, giving her an anxious and almost worried mien which at breakfast neither Henry nor the Suttons could quite understand. But now the idea of duty ceased for a time to be paramount, and she loosed herself to the pleasures of the day in store. The harbour was full of low wandering mists, through which the brown sails of the fishing-smacks played at hide-and-seek. High above them the round forms of immense clouds were still carrying the colours of sunrise. The gentle salt wind on the cheek was like the touch of a life-giver. It was impossible, on such a morning, not to exult in life, not to laugh childishly from irrational glee, not to dismiss the memory of grief and the apprehension of grief as morbid hallucinations. Mynor's face expressed the double happiness of present and anticipated pleasure. He had once again succeeded, he who had never failed; and the voyage back to England was for him a triumphal progress. Anna responded eagerly to his mood. The day was an ecstasy, a bright expanse unstained. To Anna in particular it was a unique day, marking the apogee of her existence. In the years that followed she could always return to it and say to herself: 'That day I was happy, foolishly, ignorantly, but utterly. And all that I have since learnt cannot alter it – I was happy.'
When they reached Shawport Station a cab was waiting for Anna. Unknown to her, Henry had ordered it by telegraph. This considerateness was of a piece, she thought, with his masterly conduct of the entire journey – on the steamer, at Liverpool, in the train; nothing that an experienced traveller could devise had been lacking to her comfort. She got into the cab alone, while Mynors, followed by a boy and his bag, walked to his rooms in Mount Street. It had been arranged, at Anna's wish, that he should not appear at Manor Terrace till supper-time. Ephraim opened for her the door of her home. It seemed to her that he was pleased.
'Well, father, here I am again, you see.'
'Ay, lass.' They shook hands, and she indicated to the cabman where to deposit her tin-box. She was glad and relieved to be back. Nothing had changed, except herself, and this absolute sameness was at once pleasant and pathetic to her.
'Where's Agnes?' she asked, smiling at her father. In the glow of arrival she had a vague notion that her relations with him had been permanently softened by absence.
'I see thou's gotten into th' habit o' flitting about in cabs,' he said, without answering her question.
'Well, father,' she said, smiling yet, 'there was the box. I couldn't carry the box.'
'I reckon thou couldst ha' hired a lad to carry it for sixpence.'
She did not reply. The cabman had gone to his vehicle.
'Art'na going to pay th' cabby?'
'I've paid him, father.'
'How much?'
She paused. 'Eighteen-pence, father.' It was a lie; she had paid two shillings.
She went eagerly into the kitchen, and then into the parlour, where tea was set for one. Agnes was not there. 'Her's upstairs,' Ephraim said, meeting Anna as she came into the lobby again. She ran softly upstairs, and into the bedroom. Agnes was replacing ornaments on the mantelpiece with mathematical exactitude; under her arm was a duster. The child turned, startled, and gave a little shriek.
'Eh, I didn't know you'd come. How early you are!'
They rushed towards each other, embraced, and kissed. Anna was overcome by the pathos of her sister's loneliness in that grim house for fourteen days, while she, the elder, had been absorbed in selfish gaiety. The pale face, large, melancholy eyes, and long, thin arms, were a silent accusation. She wondered that she could ever have brought herself to leave Agnes even for a day. Sitting down on the bed, she drew the child on her knee in a fury of love, and kissed her again, weeping. Agnes cried too, for sympathy.
'Oh, my dear, dear Anna, I'm so glad you've come back!' She dried her eyes, and in quite a different tone of voice asked: 'Has Mr. Mynors proposed to you?'
Anna could not avoid a blush at this simple and astounding query. She said: 'Yes.' It was the one word of which she was capable, under the circumstances. That was not the moment to tax Agnes with too much precocity and abruptness.
'You're engaged, then? Oh, Anna, does it feel nice? It must. I knew you would be!'
'How did you know, Agnes?'
'I mean I knew he would ask you, some time. All the girls at school knew too.'
'I hope you didn't talk about it,' said the elder sister.
'Oh, no! But they did; they were always talking about it.'
'You never told me that.'
'I – I didn't like to. Anna, shall I have to call him Henry now?'
'Yes, of course. When we're married he will be your brother-in-law.'
'Shall you be married soon, Anna?'
'Not for a very long time.'
'When you are – shall I keep house alone? I can, you know – I shall never dare to call him Henry. But he's awfully nice; isn't he, Anna? Yes, when you are married, I shall keep house here, but I shall come to see you every day. Father will have to let me do that. Does father know you're engaged?'
'Not yet. And you mustn't say anything. Henry is coming for supper. And then father will be told.'
'Did he kiss you, Anna?'
'Who – father?'
'No, silly! Henry, of course – I mean when he'd asked you?'
'I think you are asking all the questions. Suppose I ask you some now. How have you managed with father? Has he been nice?'
'Some days – yes,' said Agnes, after thinking a moment. 'We have had some new cups and saucers up from Mr. Mynors works. And father has swept the kitchen chimney. And, oh Anna! I asked him to-day if I'd kept house well, and he said "Pretty well," and he gave me a penny. Look! It's the first money I've ever had, you know. I wanted you at nights, Anna – and all the time, too. I've been frightfully busy. I cleaned silvers all afternoon. Anna, I have tried – And I've got some tea for you. I'll go down and make it. Now you mustn't come into the kitchen. I'll bring it to you in the parlour.'
'I had my tea at Crewe,' Anna was about to say, but refrained, in due course drinking the cup prepared by Agnes. She felt passionately sorry for Agnes, too young to feel the shadow which overhung her future. Anna would marry into freedom, but Agnes would remain the serf. Would Agnes marry? Could she? Would her father allow it? Anna had noticed that in families the youngest, petted in childhood, was often sacrificed in maturity. It was the last maid who must keep her maidenhood, and, vicariously filial, pay out of her own life the debt of all the rest.
'Mr. Mynors is coming up for supper to-night. He wants to see you;' Anna said to her father, as calmly as she could. The miser grunted. But at eight o'clock, the hour immutably fixed for supper, Henry had not arrived. The meal proceeded, of course, without him. To Anna his absence was unaccountable and disturbing, for none could be more punctilious than he in the matter of appointments. She expected him every moment, but he did not appear. Agnes, filled full of the great secret confided to her, was more openly impatient than her sister. Neither of them could talk, and a heavy silence fell upon the family group, a silence which her father, on that particular evening of Anna's return, resented.
'You dunna' tell us much,' he remarked, when the supper was finished.
She felt that the complaint was a just one. Even before supper, when nothing had occurred to preoccupy her, she had spoken little. There had seemed so much to tell – at Port Erin, and now there seemed nothing to tell. She ventured into a flaccid, perfunctory account of Beatrice's illness, of the fishing, of the unfinished houses which had caught the fancy of Mr. Sutton; she said the sea had been smooth, that they had had something to eat at Liverpool, that the train for Crewe was very prompt; and then she could think of no more. Silence fell again. The supper-things were cleared away and washed up. At a quarter-past nine, Agnes, vainly begging permission to stay up in order to see Mr. Mynors, was sent to bed, only partially comforted by a clothes-brush, long desired, which Anna had brought for her as a present from the Isle of Man.
'Shall you tell father yourself, now Henry hasn't come?' the child asked Anna, who had gone upstairs to unpack her box.
'Yes,' said Anna, briefly.
'I wonder what he'll say,' Agnes reflected, with that habit, always annoying to Anna, of meeting trouble half-way.
At a quarter to ten Anna ceased to expect Mynors, and finally braced herself to the ordeal of a solemn interview with her father, well knowing that she dared not leave him any longer in ignorance of her engagement. Already the old man was locking and bolting the door; he had wound up the kitchen clock. When he came back to the parlour to extinguish the gas she was standing by the mantelpiece.
'Father,' she began, 'I've something I must tell you.'
'Eh, what's that ye say?' his hand was on the gas-tap. He dropped it, examining her face curiously.
'Mr. Mynors has asked me to marry him; he asked me last night. We settled he should come up to-night to see you – I can't think why he hasn't. It must be something very unexpected and important, or he'd have come.' She trembled, her heart beat violently; but the words were out, and she thanked God.
'Asked ye to marry him, did he?' The miser gazed at her quizzically out of his small blue eyes.
'Yes, father.'
'And what didst say?'
'I said I would.'
'Oh! Thou saidst thou wouldst! I reckon it was for thatten as thou must go gadding off to seaside, eh?'
'Father, I never dreamt of such a thing when Suttons asked me to go. I do wish Henry' – the cost of that Christian name! – 'had come. He quite meant to come to-night.' She could not help insisting on the propriety of Henry's intentions.
'Then I am for be consulted, eh?'
'Of course, father.'
'Ye've soon made it up, between ye.'
His tone was, at the best, brusque; but she breathed more easily, divining instantly from his manner that he meant to offer no violent objection to the engagement. She knew that only tact was needed now. The miser had, indeed, foreseen the possibility of this marriage for months past, and had long since decided in his own mind that Henry would make a satisfactory son-in-law. Ephraim had no social ambitions – with all his meanness, he was above them; he had nothing but contempt for rank, style, luxury, and 'the theory of what it is to be a lady and a gentleman.' Yet, by a curious contradiction, Henry's smartness of appearance – the smartness of an unrivalled commercial traveller – pleased him. He saw in Henry a young and sedate man of remarkable shrewdness, a man who had saved money, had made money for others, and was now making it for himself; a man who could be trusted absolutely to perform that feat of 'getting on'; a 'safe' and profoundly respectable man, at the same time audacious and imperturbable. He was well aware that Henry had really fallen in love with Anna, but nothing would have convinced him that Anna's money was not the primal cause of Henry's genuine passion for Anna's self.
'You like Henry, don't you, father?' Anna said. It was a failure in the desired tact, for Ephraim had never been known to admit that he liked anyone or anything. Such natures are capable of nothing more positive than toleration.
'He's a hard-headed chap, and he knows the value o' money. Ay! that he does; he knows which side his bread's buttered on.' A sinister emphasis marked the last sentence.
Instead of remaining silent, Anna, in her nervousness, committed another imprudence. 'What do you mean, father?' she asked, pretending that she thought it impossible he could mean what he obviously did mean.
'Thou knows what I'm at, lass. Dost think he isna' marrying thee for thy brass? Dost think as he canna' make a fine guess what thou'rt worth? But that wunna' bother thee as long as thou'st hooked a good-looking chap.'
'Father!'
'Ay! thou mayst bridle; but it's true. Dunna' tell me.'
Securely conscious of the perfect purity of Mynors' affection, she was not in the least hurt. She even thought that her father's attitude was not quite sincere, an attitude partially due to mere wilful churlishness. 'Henry has never even mentioned money to me,' she said mildly.
'Happen not; he isna' such a fool as that.' He paused, and continued: 'Thou'rt free to wed, for me. Lasses will do it, I reckon, and thee among th' rest.' She smiled, and on that smile he suddenly turned out the gas. Anna was glad that the colloquy had ended so well. Congratulations, endearments, loving regard for her welfare: she had not expected these things, and was in no wise grieved by their absence. Groping her way towards the lobby, she considered herself lucky, and only wished that nothing had happened to keep Mynors away. She wanted to tell him at once that her father had proved tractable.
The next morning, Tellwright, whose attendance at chapel was losing the strictness of its old regularity, announced that he should stay at home. Sunday's dinner was to be a cold repast, and so Anna and Agnes went to chapel. Anna's thoughts were wholly occupied with the prospect of seeing Mynors, and hearing the explanation of his absence on Saturday night.
'There he is!' Agnes exclaimed loudly, as they were approaching the chapel.
'Agnes,' said Anna, 'when will you learn to behave in the street?'
Mynors stood at the chapel-gates; he was evidently awaiting them. He looked grave, almost sad. He raised his hat and shook hands, with a particular friendliness for Agnes, who was speculating whether he would kiss Anna, as his betrothed, or herself, as being only a little girl, or both or neither of them. Her eyes already expressed a sort of ownership in him.
'I should like to speak to you a moment,' Henry said. 'Will you come into the school-yard?'
'Agnes, you had better go straight into chapel,' said Anna. It was an ignominious disaster to the child, but she obeyed.
'I didn't give you up last night till nearly ten o'clock,' Anna remarked as they passed into the school-yard. She was astonished to discover in herself an inclination to pout, to play the offended fair one, because Mynors had failed in his appointment. Contemptuously she crushed it.
'Have you heard about Mr. Price?' Mynors began.
'No. What about him? Has anything happened?'
'A very sad thing has happened. Yes – ' He stopped, from emotion. 'Our superintendent has committed suicide!'
'Killed himself?' Anna gasped.
'He hanged himself yesterday afternoon at Edward Street, in the slip-house after the works were closed. Willie had gone home, but he came back, when his father didn't turn up for dinner, and found him. Mr. Price was quite dead. He ran in to my place to fetch me just as I was getting my tea. That was why I never came last night.'