to begin her disclosure.

'No better,' Emma gave answer, shaking her head. Her voice, too, was
suppressed; it was weeks since she had spoken otherwise.

'I am so sorry, Emma. Are you in a hurry to go up again?'

'No. Kate will sit there a little.'

'You look very poorly yourself. It must be very trying for you.'

'I don't feel it,' Emma said, with a pale smile. 'She gives no trouble.
It's only her weakness now; the pain has almost gone.'

'But then she must be getting better.'

Emma shook her head, looking aside. As Alice kept silence, she
continued:

'I was glad to hear you'd gone to see Richard. He wouldn't--I was afraid
he mightn't have time to get here for Christmas.'

There was a question in the words, a timorously expectant question.
Emma had learnt the sad lesson of hope deferred, always to meet
discouragement halfway. It is thus one seeks to propitiate the evil
powers, to turn the edge of their blows by meekness.

'No, he couldn't come,' said Alice.

She had a muff on her left hand, and was turning it round and round with
the other. Emma had not asked her to sit down, merely because of the
inward agitation which absorbed her.

'He's quite well?'

'Oh yes, quite well.'

Again Alice paused. Emma's heart was beating painfully. She knew now
that Richard's sister had not come on an ordinary visit; she felt that
the call to Wanley had had some special significance. Alice did not
ordinarily behave in this hesitating way.

'Did--did he send me a message?'

'Yes.'

But even now Alice could not speak. She found a way of leading up to the
catastrophe.

'Oh, mother has been going on so, Emma! What do you think? She won't
have anything to do with the house any longer. She's given me the keys
and all the money she had, and she's going to live just in her bedroom.
She says she'll get her food from the kitchen herself, and she won't
have a thing done for her by any one. I'm sure she means it; I never saw
her in such a state. She says if she'd ever so little money of her own,
she'd leave the house altogether. She's been telling me I've no feeling,
and that I'm going to the bad, that I shall live to disgrace her, and I
can't tell you what. Everything is so miserable! She says it's all the
money, and that she knew from the first how it would be. And I'm afraid
some of what she says is true, I am indeed, Emma. But things happen in a
way you could never think. I half wish myself the money had never come.
It'