the doctor from
the other side of the way was there also.

It was ten o'clock before Captain Aylmer and Miss Amedroz met
at breakfast, and they had before that been together in Mrs.
Winterfield's room. The doctor had told Captain Aylmer that his aunt
was very ill--very ill, dangerously ill. She had been wrong to go
into such a place as the cold, unaired Town-hall, and that, too,
in the month of November; and the fatigue had also been too much
for her. Mrs. Winterfield, too, had admitted to Clara that she knew
herself to be very ill. "I felt it coming on me last night," she
said, "when I was talking to you; and I felt it still more strongly
when I left you after tea. I have lived long enough. God's will be
done." At that moment, when she said she had lived long enough, she
forgot her intention with reference to her will. But she remembered
it before Clara had left the room. "Tell Frederic," she said, "to
send at once for Mr. Palmer." Now Clara knew that Mr. Palmer was the
attorney, and resolved that she would give no such message to Captain
Aylmer. But Mrs. Winterfield sent for her nephew, who had just left
her, and herself gave her orders to him. In the course of the morning
there came tidings from the attorney's office that Mr. Palmer was
away from Perivale, that he would be back on the morrow, and that he
would of course wait on Mrs. Winterfield immediately on his return.

Captain Aylmer and Miss Amedroz discussed nothing but their aunt's
state of health that morning over the breakfast-table. Of course,
under such circumstances in the house, there was no further immediate
reference made to that offer of dearest friendship. It was clear to
them both that the doctor did not expect that Mrs. Winterfield would
again leave her bed; and it was clear to Clara also that her aunt was
of the same opinion.

"I shall hardly be able to go home now," she said.

"It will be kind of you if you can remain."

"And you?"

"I shall remain over the Sunday. If by that time she is at all
better, I will run up to town and come down again before the end of
the week. I know you don't believe it, but a man really has some
things which he must do."

"I don't disbelieve you, Captain Aylmer."

"But you must write to me daily if I do go."

To this Clara made no objection;--and she must write also to some one
else. She must let her cousin know how little chance there was that
she would be at home at Christmas, explaining to him at the s