for she had no other home to go to. How was she to stay in it, if she made no apology or submission? And I cannot do that, said the girl to herself. Apology indeed! It is she who ought to humble herself to me, for it is she who has wronged me, bitterly, meanly. Passion renewed the storm, for a little while. But by degrees Rotha came to be simply cold and tired and miserable. What to do she did not know.
Nobody was at home to luncheon. She knew this, and got some refreshment from Lesbia, and also warmed herself through at the dressing-room fire. But when the door bell announced the return of her aunt and cousin, she sped away up stairs again and wrapped herself in her coverlet, and waited. She waited till it grew dark. She was not called to dinner, and saw that she would not be. Rotha fed upon indignation, which furnished her a warm meal; and then somebody knocked softly at her door. Lesbia had brought a plate with some cold viands.
"I'll fetch it agin by and by," she whispered. "I'm allays agin seein' folks starve. What's the matter, Miss Rotha?"
Lesbia had heard one side down stairs, and impartially was willing now to hear the other. Rotha's natural dignity however never sought such solace of her troubles.
"Thank you, Lesbia," she simply said. "My aunt is vexed with me."
"She's vexed worse'n ever I seen her. What you gone and done, Miss Rotha?"
"It can't be helped," said Rotha. "She and I do not think alike."
"It's convenientest not to quarrel with Mrs. Busby if you live in the house with her," said Lesbia. "She's orful smart, she is. But she and me allays thinks just alike, and so I get on first rate with her."
"That's a very good way, for you," said Rotha.
She went to bed, dulled that night with pain and misery, and slept the night through. When the light of a bright Sunday morning awoke her, she opened her eyes again to the full dreariness of her situation. So terribly dreary and cold at heart Rotha had never felt. Deserted by her one friend--and with that thought Rotha broke down and cried as if she would break her heart. But hearts are tough, and do not break so easily. The necessity of getting dressed before breakfast obliged her to check her passion of grief and dry her eyes; though _that_ she did not; the tears kept dripping on her hands and into her basin of water; but she finished dressing, and then queried what she should do about going to the breakfast-table. She was very uncertain whether she would be allowed there. However, it was disagreeable, but the attempt must be made; she must find out whether it was war to the knife or not. And although the thought choked her, she was hungry; and be it the bread of charity, and her aunt's charity to boot, she could not get along without it. She went down stairs, rather late. The family were at breakfast.
Her aunt did not look at her. Antoinette stared at her. Mr. Busby, as usual, took no notice. Rotha came up to the side of the table and stood there, changing colour somewhat.
"I do not know," she said, "if I am to be allowed to come to breakfast. I came to see."
Mrs. Busby made no answer.
"Polite--" said Antoinette.
"Eh?" said Mr. Busby looking up from a letter, "what's that? Sit down, my dear, you are late. Hold your plate--"
As nobody interfered, Rotha did so and sat down to her meal. Mrs. Busby said nothing whatever. Perhaps she felt she had pushed matters pretty far; perhaps she avoided calling her husband's attention any further to the subject. She made no remark about anything, till Mr. Busby had left the room; nor then immediately. When she did speak, it was in her hard, measured way.
"As you present yourself before me this morning, Rotha, I may hope that you are prepared to make me a proper apology."
"What have I done, aunt Serena?"
"Do you ask me? You have forgotten strangely the behaviour due from you to me."
"I did not forget it--" said Rotha slowly.
"Will you give me an excuse for your conduct, then?"
"Yes," said Rotha. "Because, aunt Serena, you had forgotten so utterly the treatment due from you to me."
Mrs. Busby flushed a little. Still she commanded herself She always did.
"Mamma, she's pretty impudent!" said Antoinette.
"I always make allowances, and you must learn to do so, Antoinette, for people who have never learned any manners."
Rotha was stung, but she confessed to herself that passion had made her overleap the bounds which she had purposed, and Mr. Digby had counselled, her behaviour should observe. So she was now silent.
"However," Mrs. Busby went on, "it is quite necessary that any one living in my family and sheltered by my roof, should pay me the respect which they owe to me."
"I will always pay all I owe," said Rotha deliberately, "so far as I have anything to pay it with."
"And in case the supply fails," said Mrs. Busby, her voice trembling a little, "don't you think you had better avoid going deeper into debt?"
"What do I owe you, aunt Serena?" asked the girl.
Mrs. Busby saw the gathering fire in the dark eyes, and did not desire to bring on another explosion. She assumed an impassive air, looked away from Rotha, rose and began to put her cups together on the tea-board, and rang for the tub of hot water.
"I leave that to your own sense to answer," she said. "But if you are to stay in my house, I beg you to understand, you must behave yourself to me with all proper civility and good manners. Else I will turn you into the street."
Rotha recognized the necessity for a certain decency of exterior form at least, if she and her aunt were to continue under one roof; and so, though her tongue was ready with an answer, she did not at once make it. She rose, and was about quitting the room, when the fire in her blazed up again.
"It is where mother would have been, if it had not been for other friends," she said.
She opened the door as she spoke, and toiled up the long stairs to her room; for when the heart is heavy somehow one's feet are not light. She went to her cold little room and sat down. The sunshine was very bright outside, and church bells were ringing. No going to church for her, nor would there have been in any case; she had no garments fit to go out in. Would she ever have them? Rotha queried. The church bells hurt her heart; she wished they would stop ringing; they sounded clear and joyous notes, and reminded her of happy times past. Medwayville, her father, her mother, peace and honour, and latterly Mr. Southwode, and all his kindness and teaching and his affection. It was too much. The early Sunday morning was spent by Rotha in an agony of weeping and lamentation; silent, however; she made no noise that could be heard down stairs where Mrs. Busby and Antoinette were dressing to go to church. The intensity of her passion again by and by wore itself out; and when the last bells had done ringing, and the patter of feet was silenced in the streets, Rotha crept down to the empty dressing room, feeling blue and cold, to warm herself. She shivered, she stretched her arms to the warmth of the fire, she was chilled to the core, with a chill that was yet more mental than physical Alone, and stripped of everything, and everybody gone that she loved. What was she to do? how was she to live? She was struggling with a burden of realities and trying to make them seem unreal, trying for an outlook of hope or comfort in the darkness of her prospects. In vain; Mr. Digby was gone, and with him all her strength and her reliance. He was gone; nobody could tell when he would come back; perhaps never; and she could not write to him, and his letters would never get to her. Never; she was sure of it. Mrs. Busby would never let them get further than her own hands. So everything was worse than she had ever feared it could be.
Sitting there on the rug before the fire, and with her teeth chattering, partly from real cold and partly from the nervous exhaustion, there came to her suddenly something Mr. Digby had once said to her. If she should come to see a time when she would have nobody to depend on; when her world would be wholly a desert; _all_ gone that she had loved or trusted. It has come now!--she thought to herself; even he, who I thought would never fail me, he has failed. He said he would not fail me, but he has failed. I am alone; I have nobody any more. Then he told me-
---
She went back and gathered it up in her memory, what he had told her to do then. Then if she would seek the Lord, seek him with her whole heart, she would find him; and finding him, she would find good again. The poor, sore heart caught at the promise. I will seek him, she suddenly said; I will seek till I find; I have nothing else now.
The resolve was as earnest as it was sudden. Doubtless the way had been preparing for it, in her mother's and her father's teachings and prayers and example, and in Mr. Digby's words and kindness and his example; she remembered now the look of his eyes as he told her the Lord Jesus would do all she trusted him to do. Yet the determination was extremely sudden to Rotha herself. And as the meeting