The
longer he thought of his grievance, the more acutely he resented it. He
was capable of great tenderness of feeling where any injury to his sense
of his own importance was concerned. His head drooped little by little
on his arms, as they rested on the fence, and, in the deep sincerity of
his mortification, he sighed bitterly.
The sigh was answered by a voice close at his side.
"You were happier with _me_, sir," said the voice, in accents of tender
regret.
He looked up with a scream--literally, with a scream--and confronted
Mrs. Lecount.
Was it the specter of the woman, or the woman herself? Her hair was
white; her face had fallen away; her eyes looked out large, bright, and
haggard over her hollow cheeks. She was withered and old. Her dress hung
loose round her wasted figure; not a trace of its buxom autumnal beauty
remained. The quietly impenetrable resolution, the smoothly insinuating
voice--these were the only relics of the past which sickness and
suffering had left in Mrs. Lecount.
"Compose yourself, Mr. Noel," she said, gently. "You have no cause to
be alarmed at seeing me. Your servant, when I inquired, said you were
in the garden, and I came here to find you.
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