"She's waiting outside with the dogs, as you said you wouldn't have her here. She's a faithful creature; I wish you liked her a little better, Edward dear."
"I never was fond of vinegar, Catherine."
"Oh, don't be so sarcastic, Edward! I never was clever; but you make me feel like a little girl again, when my governess scolded me."
There were tears in the watery blue eyes; but they did not seem to touch Sir Edward. "The remedy, my dear Catherine, is exceedingly simple," he blandly rejoined. "I know I'm a curmudgeon, unfit to associate with such an angel as you. Why then should you inflict upon yourself the unpleasantness of coming here? Why not stay away, to enjoy the more congenial society of Miss Pepper and the dogs?"
"So you don't want me, Edward? I think you're very unkind," returned Miss Geare, evidently wounded, but with a patient dignity Harold had not expected. He noticed that ever since she entered her gaze had wandered, at intervals, to an oil-painting of a fine-looking young man in uniform which hung over the mantelpiece. "But I know better than to take you at your word. You are all I have left—my dear Adrian's brother—and——" She broke down, and wiped the slow tears of age from her eyes.
Sir Edward gave an impatient sigh, and Harold interposed. "Allow me to remind you, Miss Geare, that my patient has had a very severe attack, and the quieter he is the better. Everything depends on that. I must go home now; and may I request the pleasure of your company to the gate, if you are ready?"
"Yes, do go home to Bijou!" fretfully murmured the invalid. And Miss Geare, after bestowing an affectionate farewell on the unresponsive Sir Edward, allowed Harold to politely conduct her to the lodge gate.
"Poor Edward!" she began, as they went down the drive, "he allows illness to sour his temper, and it's such a pity! But I take no notice—he's my dear Adrian's only brother, and I can't bear to stay away from the house. Did you see the portrait over the mantelpiece?—that was my Adrian. I was young, and pretty too, in those days, though you mayn't believe it——"
"I quite believe it," said Harold kindly, touched by the spectacle of this forlorn old age.
"Adrian was so proud of Edward. He was so much thought of in India, and is very, very clever—but not equal to my Adrian—oh, no; nobody ever could be as handsome and noble as he was! When I heard he was killed in the Mutiny, I thought I should die too; I think it must have killed something inside me, for I've never been the same since. I get confused, and I can't remember things——Yes, I'm coming. Very sorry to have kept you waiting."