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murmured conversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. Then Catharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, and stood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him.
"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterly subdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on our part. But it will all pass away."
He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his dripping cloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned.
"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will."
Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, or the ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded by Mary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them.
He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspect which restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some high expectation in Catharine.
"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymous letters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presume also--from what I see--that Miss Puttenham has given you her confidence. We must think calmly what is best to do. Now--the first person who must be in all our minds--is Hester."
He bent forward, looking into Alice's face, without visible emotion; rather with the air of peremptory common sense which had so often helped her through the difficulties of her life.
She sat drooping, her head on her hand, making no sign.
"Let us remember these facts," he resumed. "Hester is in a critical state of life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousin Philip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience where women are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already married under the ambiguities of Scotch law, though his wife, if she is his wife, left him some years ago, detests him, and has never been acknowledged. I have conv