Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face, making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it might almost have belonged to a spirit.
"My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn't an idea"--
"That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to you about Bee."
"About Bee?" echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. "What about her?"
"I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know anything about his relations to her?"
"The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer. He worships the ground she walks on, but he doesn't cherish anything that could be decently called hope."
"My dear Anna, it almost makes me weep for my lost youth to see him. He has so wrought upon my glands of sentiment that this morning I actually examined my husband's wardrobe to see if the maid darns his stockings properly. Fred would be perfectly amazed if he knew how sentimental I feel. I even thought of sitting up last night to welcome him home from the club, but about half past one I came to the end of my novel and felt sleepy, so I gave that up."
Mrs. Frostwinch smiled with the air of one who understands that the visitor is endeavoring to furnish a diversion from the dull sadness of the sick chamber.
"The anger of lovers, my dear, is legitimate fuel for the flame. That's nothing. She's been amusing herself with him, and if she thinks he resents it, so much the better for him."
She hesitated as if not knowing how best to frame her question.
"He is a handsome creature, as you know if you remember him," the visitor said, taking up the word. "He is well born, he is well bred, if a little countrified. He's been shut up with monks and other mouldy things, and needs a little knocking about in the world; but I am very fond of him."
"I think that whoever gets Bee will get a treasure; but I am not sure that she is any too good for my cousin. He hasn't much money, unless he gets a little fortune that ought to have been his, and which he has some hope of. I mean to give him something myself one of these days, if he behaves himself; but of course he hasn't any idea of that."