Of these details Hester said nothing to Annot; but the latter had now something _to reflect upon_, which was too distasteful for consideration, and which she endeavoured resolutely to set aside.
Sooth to say, her selfish delight in the solid, luxurious, and baronial glories of Earlshaugh was too great to be easily dissipated, and she had still, as ever, a decided, repugnance to the recollections of her widowed mother's struggles with limited means; and their somewhat sordid home in South Belgravia, as she sought courageously to shut her bright eyes to the gruesome probabilities of Hester's communication.
With a sigh of sorrow, in which, notwithstanding the gentleness of her nature, much of contempt was mingled, Hester Maule regarded her town-bred cousin, who though apparently so volatile and thoughtless, was quite a watchful little woman of the world, with what seemed childish ways, and Hebe-like beauty, so fair, so soft, with rose-leaf complexion, and her _petite_ face peeping forth, as it were, from among the coils and masses of her wonderful golden hair; and yet she was ever ready to sacrifice everything to society--that Moloch to which so many now sacrifice purity, happiness, and life itself.
For Annot believed in a union of hands and lands, with hearts left out of the compact.
Jack Elliot's mishap--accident though it could scarcely be called--thoroughly marred and shortened the partridge shooting at Earlshaugh, and the birds had quite a holiday of it.
'Never mind, Jack,' Roland had said on his departure for Edinburgh, 'you'll make amends when the pheasants are ready.'
Irritated by the event which had struck him down--exasperated by the whole affair, the secret motives for which had gradually become more apparent to him, Elliot tossed on his bed feverishly and wearily, at times scarcely conscious, in a sleepy trance, for he had lost much blood; but being a tough fellow, with a splendid constitution, he soon became convalescent, after the few grains of No. 5 that lodged had been picked out by the doctors.
Feverishly he called for cooling draughts, which were always at hand, prepared by old Mrs. Drugget, the buxom housekeeper, and even by grim, grave Mrs. Lindsay, whom the catastrophe had seriously startled and upset, as it showed the cruelty, cunning, and devilish villany of which her brother and _protégé_ was capable.