She felt weak; she seemed to see that young wife, sick, overwhelmed, struggling with her great fear, sink under this crushing blow, with no woman near her capable of affording the least sympathy.

The father did not impress her as being the man to hold up her fainting head or ease her bruised heart.
He had an icy look under his polished exterior which repelled this keen-eyed spinster, and as she remembered the coldness of his ways, she felt herself seized by an irresistible impulse to be near this young creature when the blow fell, if only to ease the tension of her own heartstrings, which at that moment ached keenly over the part she had felt herself obliged to play in this matter.
But when she rose to look for Mr.Gryce, she found him gone; and upon searching the piazza for the other two gentlemen, she saw them just vanishing round the corner in the direction of a small smoking-room.

As she could not follow them, she went upstairs, and, meeting a maid in the upper hall, asked for Mrs.Adams.She was told that Mrs.Adams was sick, but was shown the door of her room, which was at the end of a long hall.
As all the halls terminated in a window under which a sofa was to be found, she felt that circumstances were in her favor, and took her seat upon the sofa before her in a state of great complacency.

Instantly a sweet voice was heard through the open transom of the door behind which her thoughts were already concentrated.
"Where is Tom?
Oh, where is Tom?
Why does he leave me?
I'm afraid of what he may be tempted to do or say down on those great piazzas alone." "Mr.Poindexter is with him," answered a voice, measured, but kind.

"Mr.
Adams was getting very tired, and your father persuaded him to go down and have a smoke." "I must get up; indeed I must get up.