Starting back, she
saw a lady from whose pale, beautiful face a veil had just been
raised. The stranger, who was regarding her with tenderly
compassionate eyes, said:
'I am Mrs. Mutimer.'
Emma rose to her feet and drew a little apart. Her face fell.
'They told me downstairs,' Adela pursued, 'that I should find Miss
Vine in the room. Is your name Emma Vine?'
Emma asked herself whether this lady, his wife, could know anything
of her story. It seemed so, from the tone of the question. She only
replied:
'Yes, it is.'
Then she again ventured to look up at the woman whose beauty had
made her life barren. There were no signs of tears on Adela's face;
to Emma she seemed cold, though so grave and gentle. Adela gazed for
a while at the dead man. She, too, felt as though it were all a
dream. The spectacle of Emma's passionate grief had kept her emotion
within her heart, perhaps had weakened it.
'You have yourself been hurt,' she said, turning again to the other.
Emma only shook her head. She suffered terribly from Adela's
presence.
'I will go,' she said in a whisper.
'This is your room, I think?'
'Yes.'
'May I stay here?'
'Of course--you must.'
Emma was moving towards the door.
'You wish to go?' Adela said, uttering the words involuntarily.
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