The New Warden Part 46

"I haven't got any. I've only got scent," said Gwen, as she stepped into bed.

"I have some," said May. "I'll go and fetch it. I'll be back in a moment."

Gwendolen sat up in bed, drawing the clothes up to her neck, waiting.

The moment she was alone in the room, the room seemed so dismal, and the solitude alarming. There was always the devil----

"Sitting up?" said May, when she came back with the Eau-de-Cologne in her hand.

Gwendolen sank down in the bed. How comforting it was to have Mrs.

Dashwood waiting on her and talking about her and being sympathetic. She had always loved Mrs. Dashwood. She was so sweet. Now, if only, only she had not made that horrible blunder, she would have had the whole household waiting on her, talking about her and being sympathetic! Oh!

May brought a chair to the bed, and began to smooth the dark hair away from Gwen's face.

"I think you would be cooler with those handkerchiefs off," she said. "I can't get to your forehead very well with the Eau-de-Cologne."

Gwen signified her consent with a deep sigh, and May slipped the bandage off and put it away on the dressing-table.

Then she dabbed some of the Eau-de-Cologne softly on to the girl's forehead.

"I suppose you _know_," whispered Gwen, as the scent of the perfume came into her nostrils.

"Yes," said May.

"I hope the servants don't know," groaned Gwen.

"I don't think any one knows, but just ourselves," said May, in a soothing voice; "and no one but ourselves need know about it."

"Oh, it's horrible!" groaned Gwen again. "I can't bear it!"

"It is hard to bear," said May, as she smoothed the girl's brow.

After a little silence Gwendolen suddenly said--

"You don't believe in that ghost?"

"The ghost?" said May, a little surprised at this sudden deviation from the cause of Gwendolen's grief.

"You thought it was silly?" said Gwen, tentatively.

"Not silly, but fanciful," said May.

Gwendolen moved her head. "I think I was; but I still see him, and I don't want to. I have begun to think about him, now, this evening. I had forgotten before----"

"You must make up your mind not to think of it. It isn't a real person, Gwen."

Gwendolen still kept her head slightly round towards May Dashwood, though she had her eyes closed so as not to interfere with the movements of May's hand on her brow.

"Do you think the devil does things?" she asked in an awed voice.

May hesitated for a moment and then said: "We do things, and some of us call it the devil doing things."

"Then you don't believe in the devil?" asked Gwendolen, opening her eyes.

"I don't think so, Gwen," said May. "But G.o.d I am sure of."

Gwendolen lay still for a little while. She was thinking now of her troubles.

"You don't do any wrong things?" asked Gwendolen, tentatively.

"We all do wrong things," said May.

"I mean wrong things that people make a fuss about," said Gwendolen, thinking of Mrs. Potten, and the drawing-room at Potten End.

"Some things are more wrong than others," said May. "It depends upon whether they do much harm or not."

Gwendolen pondered. This was a new proof of Mrs. Potten's meanness. What she, Gwen, had done had harmed n.o.body practically.

"I'm miserable!" she burst out.

"Poor Gwen!" murmured May.

Gwendolen lay still. Her heart was full. When she had once left the Lodgings, and was at Mrs. Potten's she would be among enemies. Now, here, at least she had one friend--some one who was not mean and didn't scold. She must speak to this one kind friend--she would tell her troubles. She must have some one to confide in.

"I didn't want to break off the engagement," she said at last, unable to keep her thoughts much longer to herself.

"You didn't want to!" said May gently. It was scarcely a question, but it drew Gwendolen to an explanation of her words.

"Mrs. Potten made me," she said.

"No one could make you," said May, quietly. "Could they?"

"She did," said Gwen, with a burst of tears. "I wanted to make it all right, and she wouldn't let me. If only I could have seen the Warden, he would have taken my side, perhaps," and here Gwen's voice became less emphatic. "But Mrs. Potten simply made me. She was determined. She hates me. I can't bear her."

"Had you done absolutely nothing to make her so determined?" asked May wondering.

"Nothing--except a little joke----" began Gwen. "It was merely a sort of a joke."

"A joke!" said May, and her voice was very low and strange.

The umbrella standing in the corner of the room in the shadow seemed to make faces at Gwen. Why hadn't she put the horrid thing in the wardrobe?

"It was only meant as a sort of joke," she repeated, and then the overwhelming flood of bitter memory coming upon her, she yielded to her instinct and poured out to May, bit by bit, a broken garbled history of the whole affair--a story such as Belinda and Co. would tell--a story made, unconsciously, all the more sordid and pitiful because it was obviously not the whole truth.

And this was a story told by one who might have been the Warden's wife!

May went on soothing the girl's hair and brow with her hand.

"And Mrs. Potten wouldn't let me make it all right. She refused to let me, though I begged her to, and gave her my word of honour," wept Gwen, indignantly. Then she suddenly said, "Oh, the fire's going out and perhaps you're cold!" for she was fearful lest her visitor would leave her. "When my dinner was taken away too much coal was put on my fire, and I was too miserable to make a fuss."