This note was written with but few erasures, for it was Lady Ellington's
invariable custom to think her thoughts with some precision before she
committed them to paper. Yet, late as it had grown, she copied it out
afresh, put it in an envelope and directed it, and placed it on a small
table by the head of her bed, so that when her tea was brought in the
morning, it would be patent to the eyes of her maid. But, rather
uncharacteristically, she thought over what she had said in it as she
continued her undressing. Yet it was all for the good, likewise there
was no word in it that was not true. And she slept with a conscience
that was hard and clear and quite satisfied. For if one was doing one's
best for people, nothing further could be demanded from one. And that
she was doing her best she had no kind of doubt. Thus her mind was soon
at leisure to observe that it was impossible to put out the electric
light after getting into bed. It was necessary to light a candle first,
and she made a mental note to refuse to pay for candles in case they
were charged in the bill.
Lady Ellington's postponement of the settling of the train by which she
and Madge should go up to town next day was due, as the reader will have
guessed, to her desire to get Evelyn's answer to her note before she
went. A glorious morning of flooding sunshine and a world washed and
renewed by the torrents of the day before succeeded the storm, and at
breakfast her plan of spending the morning in the forest, and going up
to London after lunch was accepted by Madge if not with enthusiasm, at
any rate with complete acquiescence. She of course must not know that
her mother had written to Evelyn; it was wiser also, in case she was
familiar with his handwriting, that there should be no risk run of her
seeing the envelope addressed by him in reply. A very little strategy,
however, would affect all this, and in obedience to orders, as soon as
Lady Ellington and Madge had started on their ramble this morning, her
maid took a cab to the Hermitage, bearing this note, the answer to which
she would wait for, and give it to her mistress privately. This seemed
to provide for all contingencies anyhow that could arise from this note
itself. Indeed, though there were dangers and contingencies to be
avoided or provided for before Madge would be safely Home--Lady
Ellington thought this rather neat--she felt herself quite competent to
tackle with them. Madge had declared she would take no step without the
initiative on the part of Evelyn, and after the really very carefully
worded note which he would receive this morning, it was not easy to see
what he could do. Luck, of course, that blind goddess who upsets all our
plans as a mischievous child upsets a chess-board on which the most
delicate problem is in course of solution, might bring in the unforeseen
to wreck everything, but Lady Ellington's experience was that Luck
chiefly interfered with careless people who did not lay their plans
well. She could not accuse herself of belonging to that class, nor in
fact would her enemies, if, as was highly probable, she had enemies,
have done so.
It was therefore in a state of reasonable calm and absence of
apprehension that she came back from her long stroll in the forest with
Madge just before lunch. She had had a really delightful walk, and they
had talked over, without any allusion to the subject that really
occupied them both, the gospel of the simple life, as practised by
Merivale. Madge had not slept well; indeed, it would be truer to say she
had scarcely slept at all, and her face bore traces of the weary hours
of the night. But she too, like her mother, though for different
reasons, had no temptation to re-open the subject, simply because she
felt she could not stand any more just then, and it was something of a
relief to devote even the superficial activity of her mind to other
topics. Not for a moment did she doubt that Evelyn would write to her
asking to see her; he must indeed do that for his own sake no less than
hers, and though the waiting was hard enough, yet at the end of it there
shone so bright a light that even the waiting had a sort of luminous
rapture about it. So comforting herself thus, she responded to her
mother's bright, agile talk, and indeed took her fair share of
conversation.
The answer had arrived when Lady Ellington reached home, and her maid
gave it her in her bedroom. It acknowledged the receipt of her note, as
she had asked, and which indeed was all she had asked. She should,
therefore, have been perfectly satisfied. Yet she was not quite; she did
not feel as secure as she could have wished.
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