“We must talk,” said Oldmeadow. He felt extraordinarily happy. “There are so many things I want to ask you about.” And he went on, his hand still on her arm, seeing that she struggled not to cry and helping her to recover: “You’re not going away for some time, yet, I hope. Please don’t. There’ll soon be no need of hospitals of this sort, anywhere, will there? and you must manage to stay on here a little longer. I shan’t get on if you go. You won’t leave me just as you’ve saved me, will you, Mrs. Barney?”
At the name, over-taxed as she was already, a pitiful colour flooded her face and before his blunder made visible his own blood answered hers, mounting hotly to his forehead. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, helpless and hating himself, while his hand dropped. She stood over him, holding herself there so as not to hurt him by the aspect of flight. She even, in a moment, forced herself to smile. It was the first smile he had seen on her face. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Mr. Oldmeadow,” she said, as she had said before. “You’re very kind to me. I wish I could tell you how kind I feel you are.” And as she turned away, carrying the tray, she added: “No; I won’t go yet.”
CHAPTER IV
HE did not see her again for two days; and she did not even come at night. But he now kept possession of his new strength and slept without her help. The sense of happiness brooded upon him. He did not remember ever having felt so happy. His life was irradiated and enhanced as if by some supreme experience.
It was already late afternoon when, on the second day, she appeared; but in this month of August his room was still filled with the reflection of the sunlight and the warm colour bathed her as she entered. She wore a blue cloak over her white linen dress and she had perhaps been walking, for there was a slight flush on her cheeks and a look almost of excitement in her eyes.
She unfastened her cloak and put it aside and then, taking the chair near the window, clasping her hands, as before, in her lap, she said, without preamble and with a peculiar vehemence: “You hear often from Barney, don’t you?”
Oldmeadow felt himself colouring. “Only once, directly. It rather tires him to sit up, you know. But he’s getting on wonderfully and the doctors think he’ll soon be able to walk a little—with a crutch, of course.”
“But you do hear, constantly, from Nancy, don’t you,” said Adrienne, clasping and unclasping her hands but speaking with a steadiness he felt to be rehearsed. “He is at Coldbrooks, I know, and Nancy is with him, and his mother and Mrs. Averil. It all seems almost happy, doesn’t it? as happy as it can be, now, with Palgrave dead and Barney shackled.”
Startled as he was by her directness Oldmeadow managed to meet it.
“Yes; almost happy,” he said. “I was with them before I came out this last time and felt that about them. Poor Mrs. Chadwick is a good deal changed; but even she is reviving.”