'I can't be displeased with anything you do.'
'And you give me leave?'
'To be sure I do,--leave to do anything but hurt yourself.'
'And would it be wrong for me to offer to write to him? No one else will, and it will be sad for him not to hear. It cannot be wrong, can it?' said she, as the fingers of her right hand squeezed her wedding-ring, a habit she had taken up of late.
'Certainly not, my poor darling. Do just as you think fit. I am sorry for him, for I am sure he is in great trouble, and I should like him to be comforted--if he can. But, Amy, you must not ask me to do it. He has disappointed me too much.'
Mrs. Edmonstone left the room in tears.
Amabel went up to the window, looked long at the chestnut-tree, then up into the sky, sat down, and leant her forehead on her hand in meditation, until she rose up, cheered and sustained, as if she had been holding council with her husband.
She did not over-estimate Philip's sufferings from suspense and anxiety. He had not heard a word of Laura; how she had borne his illness, nor how much displeasure his confession had brought upon her; nor could he learn what hope there was that his repentance was accepted. He did not venture to ask; for after engaging to leave all to them, could he intrude his own concerns on them at such a time? It was but a twelvemonth since he had saddened and shadowed Guy's short life and love with the very suffering from uncertainty that he found so hard to bear. As he remembered this, he had a sort of fierce satisfaction in enduring this retributive justice; though there were moods when he felt the torture so acutely, that it seemed to him as if his brain would turn if he saw them depart, and was left behind to this distracting doubt.
The day had come, on which they were to take their first stage, as far as Vicenza, and his last hopes were fading. He tried to lose the sense of misery by bestirring himself in the preparations; but he was too weak, and Mrs. Edmonstone, insisting on his attempting no more, sent him back: to his own sitting-room.
Presently there was a knock, and in came Amabel, dressed, for the first time, in her weeds, the blackness and width of her sweeping crape making her young face look smaller and paler, while she held in her hand some leaves of chestnut, that showed where she had been. She smiled a little as she came in, saying, 'I am come to you for a little quiet, out of the bustle of packing up. I want you to do something for me.'