ABSTRACT
Osborne and Roger came to the Hall; Molly found Roger established there when she returned after this absence at home. She gathered that Osborne was coming; but very little was said about him in any way. The squire scarcely ever left his wife’s room now; he sat by her, watching her and now and then moaning to himself She was so much under the influence of opiates that she did not often rouse up; but when she did, she almost invariably asked for Molly. In their rare tête-à-tête, she would ask after Osborne where he was, if he had been told, and if he was coming? In her weakened and confused state of intellect she seemed to have retained two strong impressions – one, of the sympathy with which Molly had received her confidence about Osborne; the other, of the anger which her husband entertained against him. Before the squire she never mentioned Osborne’s name; nor did she seem at her ease in speaking about him to Roger, while, when she was alone with Molly, she hardly spoke of any one else. She must have had some sort of wandering idea that Roger blamed his brother, while she remembered Molly’s eager defence, which she had thought hopelessly improbable at the time. At any rate she made Molly her confidant a about her first-born. She sent her to ask Roger how soon he would come, for she seemed to know perfectly well that he was coming.
