, "and
he wants me to come and talk to him."

"Well," said Hilda, "come."

She put her arm about Alicia and drew her out of the room to the foot of
the stairs. They went in silence, saying nothing even when they parted,
and Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Half way up she paused
and looked down. Hilda turned to meet her glance, and something of
primitive puissance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the eyes of
the two women.

CHAPTER XVI.

For three days there had certainly been, with the invalid, no sign of
anything but convalescence. An appetite to cry out upon, a chartered
tendency to take small liberties, to make small demands; such
indications offered themselves to the eye that looked for other
betrayals. There had been opportunities--even the day nurse had gone and
Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room--but he seemed to prefer to talk
about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the khansamah, or
things in the newspapers. Alicia once, at a suggestive point, put almost
a visible question into a silent glance, and Lindsay asked her for some
more sugar. Surgeon-Major Livingstone, coming into his office
unexpectedly one morning, found his sister in the act of replacing a
volume upon its professional shelf. It was somebody on the pathology of
Indian fevers. Hilda's theory lacked so little to approve it--only
technical corroboration. It might also be considered that, although
Laura had expressly received the freedom of the city for intercessional
or any other purpose, she did not come again. They may have heard in
Crooked lane that Duff was better. We may freely imagine that Mrs. Sand
was informed; it looked as if the respite to disinterested anxiety
afforded by his recovery had been taken advantage of. Lindsay was to be
given time for more dignified repentance; they might now very well hand
him over, Alicia thought, smiling, to the Archdeacon.

As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation to Lindsay, still
in prospect, of the single visit Captain Filbert did make was perhaps
lacking in essentials. It would be an experiment of some intricacy, it
might very probably work, out in shades. So much would infallibly have
to be put down for surprise and so much reasonably for displeasure,
without any prejudice to the green hope budding underneath; the key to
Hilda's theory might very well be lost in contingencies. Nevertheless,
Alicia postponed her story from day to day and fro