In due course he sat down to dinner--we are all such creatures of habit. There was everything as usual, except the familiar faces. There was the glittering plate on the polished sideboard, the pyramid of flowers surrounded with fruits. There were even chairs at the table, for the servants did not know he was to be quite alone. But he was. One delicate dish after another was brought him, and sent away untasted. Soon after dinner Rhoda Gale came down and told him her patient was in a precarious condition, and she feared fever and delirium. She begged him to send one servant up to the farm for certain medicaments she had there, and another to the chemist at Taddington. These were dispatched on swift horses, and both were back in half an hour. By-and-by Fanny Dover came down to him, with red eyes, and brought him Zoe's love. “But,” said she, “don't ask her to come down. She is ashamed to look anybody in the face, poor girl.” “Why? what has _she_ done?” “Oh, Harrington, she has made no secret of her affection; and now, at sight of that woman, he has abandoned her.” “Tell her I love her more than I ever did, and respect her more. Where is her pride?” “Pride! she is full of it; and it will help her--by-and-by. But she has a bitter time to go through first. You don't know how she loves him.” “What! love him still, after what he has done?” “Yes! She interprets it this way and that. She cannot bear to believe another woman has any real right to separate them.” “Separate them! The scoundrel knocked _her_ down for loving him still, and fled from them both. Was ever guilt more clear? If she doubts that he is a villain, tell her from me he is a forger, and has given me bills with false names on them. The bankers gave me notice to-day, and I was coming home to order him out of the house when this miserable business happened.” “A forger! is it possible?” said Fanny. “But it is no use my telling her that sort of thing. If he had committed murder, and was true to her, she would cling to him. She never knew till now how she loved him, nor I neither. She put him in Coventry for telling a lie; but she was far more unhappy all the time than he was. There is nothing to do but to be kind to her, and let her hide her face. Don't hurry her.” “Not I. God help her! If she has a wish, it shall be gratified. I am powerless. She is young. Surely time will cure her of a villain, now he is detected.” Fanny said she hoped so. The truth is, Zoe had not opened her heart to Fanny. She clung to her, and writhed in her arms; but she spoke little, and one broken sentence contradicted the other. But mental agony, like bodily, finds its vent, not in speech, the brain's great interpreter, but in inarticulate cries, and moans, and sighs, that prove us animals even in the throes of mind. Zoe was in that cruel stage of suffering. So passed that miserable day. CHAPTER XXI.