It was unthinkable.
If he could love some one else than Leonora, her fierce unknown heart suddenly spoke in her side, why could it not be herself?
And he did not love her.... This had occurred about a month before she got the letter from her mother.
She let the matter rest until the sick feeling went off; it did that in a day or two.
Then, finding that Leonora's headaches had gone, she suddenly told Leonora that Mrs Brand had divorced her husband.
She asked what, exactly, it all meant.
Leonora was lying on the sofa in the hall; she was feeling so weak that she could hardly find the words.
She answered just:
"It means that Mr Brand will be able to marry again."
Nancy said:
"But... but..." and then: "He will be able to marry Miss Lupton."
Leonora just moved a hand in assent.
Her eyes were shut.
"Then..." Nancy began.
Her blue eyes were full of horror: her brows were tight above them; the lines of pain about her mouth were very distinct.
In her eyes the whole of that familiar, great hall had a changed aspect.
The andirons with the brass flowers at the ends appeared unreal; the burning logs were just logs that were burning and not the comfortable symbols of an indestructible mode of life.
The flame fluttered before the high fireback; the St Bernard sighed in his sleep.
Outside the winter rain fell and fell.
And suddenly she thought that Edward might marry some one else; and she nearly screamed.
Leonora opened her eyes, lying sideways, with her face upon the black and gold pillow of the sofa that was drawn half across the great fireplace.
"I thought," Nancy said, "I never imagined.... Aren't marriages sacraments?
Aren't they indissoluble?
I thought you were married. .. and..." She was sobbing.
"I thought you were married or not married as you are alive or dead."
"That," Leonora said, "is the law of the church.
It is not the law of the land...."
"Oh yes," Nancy said, "the Brands are Protestants."
She felt a sudden safeness descend upon her, and for an hour or so her mind was at rest.
It seemed to her idiotic not to have remembered Henry VIII and the basis upon which Protestantism rests.
She almost laughed at herself.
The long afternoon wore on; the flames still fluttered when the maid made up the fire; the St Bernard awoke and lolloped away towards the kitchen.
And then Leonora opened her eyes and said almost coldly:
"And you?
Don't you think you will get married?"
It was so unlike Leonora that, for the moment, the girl was frightened in the dusk.
But then, again, it seemed a perfectly reasonable question.
"I don't know," she answered.
"I don't know that anyone wants to marry me."
"Several people want to marry you," Leonora said.
"But I don't want to marry," Nancy answered.
"I should like to go on living with you and Edward.
I don't think I am in the way or that I am really an expense.
If I went you would have to have a companion.
Or, perhaps, I ought to earn my living...."
"I wasn't thinking of that," Leonora answered in the same dull tone.
"You will have money enough from your father.
But most people want to be married."
I believe that she then asked the girl if she would not like to marry me, and that Nancy answered that she would marry me if she were told to; but that she wanted to go on living there.
She added: