She was certain it was her mother had written that note. But she
read it with tears, only half-reassured--and then burnt it to ashes,
and proceeded to dress herself.
When she went down to the drawing-room, Mrs. Clifford rose from
her seat, and took her hand in her own, and kissed her on one cheek
as if nothing out of the common had happened in any way. The talk
between them was obtrusively commonplace. But all that day long,
Elma noticed her mother was far tenderer to her than usual; and
when she went up to bed Mrs. Clifford held her fingers for a moment
with a gentle pressure, and kissed her twice upon her eyes, and
stifled a sigh, and then broke from the room as if afraid to speak
to her.
CHAPTER X.
COLONEL KELMSCOTT'S REPENTANCE.
Elma Clifford wasn't the only person who passed a terrible night
and suffered a painful awakening on the morning after the Holkers'
garden-party. Colonel Kelmscott, too, had his bad half-hour or so
before he finally fell asleep; and he woke up next day to a sense
of shame and remorse far more definite, and, therefore, more poignant
and more real than Elma's.
Hour after hour, indeed, he lay there on his bed, afraid to toss or
turn lest he should wake Lady Emily, but with his limbs all fevered
and his throat all parched, thinking over the strange chance that
had thus brought him face to face, on the threshold of his honoured
age, with the two lads he had wronged so long and so cruelly.
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