Dr. Duncan disappeared within the study door, and Nigel did not come out as she expected.
Fulvia went across to the morning-room, and sat within the open door, keeping watch.
The watch lasted a good while. She could bear nothing at first. Hardly a sound came from the study—unless—was that Mr. Browning? Fulvia fancied she caught a slight moan. Then stillness again, except at intervals a word or so Dr. Duncan's voice, suppressed, and not as usual, cheerful. Fulvia did not know what to make of it. She had expected a continuous murmur of talk—Dr. Duncan asking questions, Mr. Browning answering. Was that the key of the study door turned? Then they were afraid that she or Mrs. Browning might walk in, and interrupt the conference? But what harm if either had?
Fulvia's solitude was invaded suddenly by the return of Mrs. Browning and the girls, accompanied by Mr. Carden-Cox, who had picked them up, or been picked up by them, somewhere in the town. Fulvia, wondered what he had come for, since to her knowledge Nigel had called on Mr. Carden-Cox since breakfast. But when she saw him, nothing was farther from her thoughts than that which occupied the whole foreground of Mr. Carden-Cox's mind—the fourth postscript.
"Fulvia!" was the astonished cry, as she came forward into the hall.
Patchy flushes had faded during her vigil, and she looked haggard.
"Fulvia downstairs! My dear, how wrong of you!" Mrs. Browning added.
"It will not hurt me, madre; and one good has come of it, dear," Fulvia said, kissing Mrs. Browning. "Padre is seeing Dr. Duncan."
"My husband! Then he is—"
"Oh, it is nothing; really nothing," Fulvia could reply honestly in her ignorance. "Only I stupidly said something about my money—something I knew he really would like, and he was a little fussed and upset by it. And then he consented to see Dr. Duncan, and Dr. Duncan turned up in the very nick of time. So now they are having a proper consultation, and they ought not to be interrupted."