Meanwhile Rhoda and Robert were talking very happily together. They did not see that Dolly was crying behind her veil.
The hospital is a tranquil little place at the end of long avenues of plane-trees that run their dreary lengths for miles out of the gates of Paris. A blouse, a heap of stones, a market cart—there is nothing else to break the dreary monotone of straight pavement and shivering plane-tree repeated many hundred times. Sometimes you reach a cross-road: it is the same thing again. They came to the iron gates of the hospital at last, and crossed the front garden, and looked up at the open windows while they waited for admission. A nurse let them in without difficulty, and opened the door of a great airy, tranquil ward, where three or four invalids in cotton nightcaps were resting. The windows opened each way into silent gardens. It was all still and hushed and fresh; it must have seemed a strange contrast to some of the inmates. A rough, battered-looking man was lying on his back on his bed, listlessly tracing the lines of the ceiling with his finger. It was to him that the nurse led Dolly. 'This is Smith,' she said; 'he is very anxious to go home to England.'
The man hearing his name, sat up and turned a thin and stubbly-bearded face towards Dolly, and as he looked at her he half rose to his feet and stared at her hard: while she spoke to him, he still stared with an odd frightened look that was not rude, but which Dolly found embarrassing.
She hastily gave him the money and the message from Mrs. Fane. He was to come back to the home in —— Street. The nurse who had nursed him in the Crimea had procured his admission. He had been badly wounded; he was better, and his one longing was to get to England again. He had a little money, he said. He wanted to see his boy and give him the money. It was prize-money—the nurse had it to take care of; and still he went on staring at Dolly.
Dolly could not shake off the impression of that curious, frightened look. She told the Squire about it when they met at the café that evening, as they sat after dinner in the starlight at little tables with coffee and ices before them, and cheerful crowds wandering round and round the arcades—some staring at the glittering shops, others, more sentimentally inclined, gazing at the stars overhead. Mrs. Palmer was absorbed in an ice.
Voices change in the twilight as colours do, and it seemed to Dolly that all their voices had the cadence of the night, as they sat there talking of one thing and another. Every now and then came little bursts of revelry, toned down and softened by the darkness. How clear the night was! What a great peaceful star was pausing over the gable of the old palace!
The Squire was giving extracts from his Yorkshire correspondence. 'Miss Bell said nothing of a certain report which had got about, to the effect that she was going to be married to Mr. Stock.' ('Pray, pray spare us,' from Mrs. Palmer.) But Bell did say something of expecting to have some news for the Squire on his return, if Norah did not forestall her with it. 'Mr. Raban is always coming. He is out riding now with papa and Norah; and we all think it an awfully jolly arrangement, and everybody is making remarks already.'
'One would really think Joanna had brought up her girls in the stables,' said Mrs. Palmer. 'I am sure I am very glad that Norah is likely to do so well. Though I must say I always thought Mr. Raban a poor creature, and so did you, Dolly.'
'I think he is one of the best and kindest friends I ever had,' said Dolly, abruptly.
'Nonsense, dearest,' said her mother. 'And so you really leave us,' continued Mrs. Palmer, sipping the pink and green ice, with her head on one side, and addressing Mr. Anley.