"It is simply your duty to go," went on Gertrude, who was consumed with anxiety concerning her sister; then added, involuntarily, "if you think you can bear it."
A light came into Lucy's eyes.
"Is there anything that one cannot bear?"
She turned away, and began mechanically fixing a negative into one of the printing frames. She remembered how, on that last day, Frank had planned the visit to Cornwall. Was he not going to show her every nook and corner of the old home, which many a time before he had so minutely described to her? The place had for long been familiar to her imagination, and now she was in fact to make acquaintance with it; that was all. What availed it to dwell on contrasts?
The sisters spoke little of Lucy's approaching journey, which was fixed for some days after the receipt of the letter; and one cold and foggy November afternoon found her helping Mrs. Maryon with her little box down the stairs, while Matilda went for a cab.
At the same moment Gertrude issued from the studio with her outdoor clothes on.
"No one is likely to come in this Egyptian darkness," she said; "it is four o'clock already, and I am going to take you to Paddington."
"That will be delightful, if you think you may risk it," answered Lucy, who looked very pale in her black clothes.
"I have left a message with Mrs. Maryon to be delivered in the improbable event of 'three customers coming in,' as they did in John Gilpin," said Gertrude, with a feeble attempt at sprightliness.