She had got through it very well certainly, but not so well as she had been led to expect by her meeting with his father three weeks since. She had had her misgivings before that interview, and had been pleasantly surprised to find how thoroughly the inexorable present had ridden rough-shod over the half-forgotten past. Their old identities had vanished, and it was possible to be civil and courteous, and that sort of thing; even to send messages of sympathy, quite in earnest, to the lady who up till now had been little more than the Miss Abercrombie Hamilton Torrens married. Being thus set at ease about what seemed rocks of embarrassment ahead, in the father's case, Lady Ancester had looked forward with perfect equanimity to making the acquaintance of the son--had, in fact, only connected him in her mind with this deplorable accident, which, however, she quite understood to be going to be a thing of the past. All in good time. Her equanimity had, however, been disturbed by the young man's inherited manner, which his father had so completely lost; above all things by his rapid nonsense, one of his father's leading characteristics in youth. She condemned it as more nonsensical, which probably only meant that she herself was older. But the manner--the manner of it! How it brought back Clarges Street and her mother, and the family earthquake over her resolution to marry a young Dragoon, with three good lives between him and his inheritance! She was taken aback to find herself still so sensitive about that old story.
She had not succeeded in ridding herself of her disquieting memories when her daughter followed her, choking back tense excitement until she had fairly closed the door behind her. Then her words came with a rush, for all that she kept her voice in check to say them.
"He cannot _see_, mamma--he cannot see _at all_! He is dead stone-blind--for life--for life! And _we_ have done it--_we_ have done it!" Then she broke down utterly, throwing herself on a sofa to hide in its cushions the torrent of tears she could no longer keep back. "_We_ have done it--_we_ have done it!" she kept on crying. "_We_ have ruined his life, and the guilt is ours--ours--_all_!"
The Countess, good woman, tried to mix consolation with protest against such outrageous pessimism. She pointed out that there was no medical authority for such an extreme view as Gwen's. On the contrary, Sir Coupland had spoken most hopefully. And, after all, if Mr. Torrens could see Arthur's Bridge he could not be absolutely blind.