emed--who had certainly seemed----' And Lady
Davenant, with her fine old face lighted by her bright sagacity and her
eyes on Mr. Wendover's, paused, lingering on this word. 'Of course she
must have been in a state of nerves.'

'I am very sorry for her,' said Mr. Wendover, with his gravity that
committed him to nothing.

'So am I! And of course if you were not in love with her you weren't,
were you?'

'I must bid you good-bye, I am leaving London.' That was the only
answer Lady Davenant got to her inquiry.

'Good-bye then. She is the nicest girl I know. But once more, mind you
don't let her suspect!'

'How can I let her suspect anything when I shall never see her again?'

'Oh, don't say that,' said Lady Davenant, very gently.

'She drove me away from her with a kind of ferocity.'

'Oh, gammon!' cried the old woman.

'I'm going home,' he said, looking at her with his hand on the door.

'Well, it's the best place for you. And for her too!' she added as he
went out. She was not sure that the last words reached him.

XIII

Laura Wing was sharply ill for three days, but on the fourth she made up
her mind she was better, though this was not the opinion of Lady
Davenant, who would not hear of her getting up. The remedy she urged was
lying still and yet lying still; but this specific the girl found
well-nigh intolerable--it was a form of relief that only ministered to
fever. She assured her friend that it killed her to do nothing: to which
her friend replied by asking her what she had a fancy to do. Laura had
her idea and held it tight, but there was no use in producing it before
Lady Davenant, who would have knocked it to pieces. On the afternoon of
the first day Lionel Berrington came, and though his intention was
honest he brought no healing. Hearing she was ill he wanted to look
after her--he wanted to take her back to Grosvenor Place and make her
comfortable: he spoke as if he had every convenience for producing that
condition, though he confessed there was a little bar to it in his own
case. This impediment was the 'cheeky' aspect of Miss Steet, who went
sniffing about as if she knew a lot, if she should only condescend to
tell it. He saw more of the children now; 'I'm going to have 'em in
every day, poor little devils,' he said; and he spoke as if the
discipline of suffering had already begun for him and a kind of holy
change had taken place in his life. Nothing had been said yet in the
house, of co