Something in his aspect awed her--something of the mute despair and
solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his
pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution.
Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;--for a
moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and
plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever
since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,--for a moment she was
impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his
pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the
unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,--then, with a sudden
impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran
downstairs.

There she found half the evening's guests gone, and the other half well
on the move. Some of these glanced at her inquiringly, with "nods and
becks and wreathed smiles," but she paid no heed to any of them. Her
mother came eagerly up to her, anxiety purpling every vein of her
mottled countenance, but no word did she utter, till, having put on
their cloaks, the two waited together on the steps of the mansion, with
flunkeys on either side, for the hired brougham to bowl up in as
_un_-hired a style as was possible at the price of one guinea for the
night's outing.

"Where is Mr. Helmsley?" then asked Mrs. Sorrel.

"In his own room, I believe," replied Lucy, frigidly.

"Isn't he coming to see you into the carriage and say good-night?"