"Good-bye. Pray stay as long as you can with my wife," General Villiers begged, with his stately courtesy. "I shall count it a kindness. She has been rather over-fatigued to-day—not quite the thing."
"Jean will not hurry away. She does not mind weather," said Evelyn.
"I should love to be caught in a storm," asserted Jean.
"It is no storm yet. I do not know how things may be by-and-by. Well—good-bye, my love, for the moment. Keep yourself warm, and try to rest."
"I'll try, and—William—"
Evelyn clung to him, white as a sheet, with wide sorrowful eyes, and there was the sound of a sob.
It was of no use for Jean to pretend now not to see or hear. She could only stand in constrained silence.
"William, I am so sorry! You were so good to me! I'll try not to behave so again! Say you forgive me."
"My dearest!" and the General folded her slight figure in protecting arms; for the moment almost as oblivious of Jean's presence as Evelyn was careless of it. "You are overstrained," he said, kissing her brow. "I must not let you do so much. Miss Trevelyan will take care of you now for an hour or two, and when I come back—My dear one, don't fret! You did not mean anything, I know—" in a most audible masculine whisper. "Another time, perhaps—Yes, I quite understand—My own dear little wife! Yes, come to the door, and see me off."
Jean was greatly relieved when the two vanished. She drew a breath of vexation at having been so uncomfortably placed, and walked to the window, where growing darkness was lighted by a ghostly glimmer of white feathers, trailing slowly earthwards.