No doubt the old janitor had been informed of the doctor's visit, for he showed him at once into the sitting-room.
Andrea was waiting, clad in full mourning. It was clear that she had neither slept nor wept all the night through; her face was pale and her eyes dry. Never had the lines of her countenance, always indicative of willfulness carried to the degree of stubbornness, been more firmly fixed.
It was hard to tell what resolution that loving heart had settled on, but it was plain that it had come to one. This was comprehended by Gilbert at a first glance, as he was a skilled observer and a reasoning physician.
He bowed and waited.
"I asked you to come because I want a favor done, and it must be put to one who can not refuse it me."
"You are right, madame; not, perhaps, in what you are about to ask, but in what you have done; for you have the right to claim of me anything, even to my life."
She smiled bitterly.
"Your life, sir, is one of those so precious to mankind that I should be the first to pray God to prolong it and make it happy, far from wishing it abridged. But acknowledge that yours is placed under happy influences, as there are others seemingly doomed beneath a fatal star."
Gilbert was silent.
"Mine, for instance," went on Andrea; "what do you say about mine? Let me recall it briefly," she said, as Gilbert lowered his eyes. "I was born poor. My father was a ruined spendthrift before I was born. My childhood was sad and lonesome. You knew what my father was, as you were born on his estate and grew up in our house, and you can measure the little affection he had for me.