When Augustus left the room in the middle of the day he encountered Madeline wandering about the house. In these days she did wander about the house, as though there were something always to be done in some place apart from that in which she then was. And yet the things which she did were but few. She neither worked nor read, and as for household duties, her share in them was confined almost entirely to the morning and evening teapot.
"It isn't true that he's to go to-morrow morning, Augustus, is it?" said she.
"Who, Graham? Well; he says that he will. He is very anxious to get to London; and no doubt he finds it stupid enough lying there and doing nothing."
"But he can do as much there as he can lying by himself in his own chambers, where I don't suppose he would have anybody to look after him. He thinks he's a trouble and all that, and therefore he wants to go. But you know mamma doesn't mind about trouble of that kind; and what should we think of it afterwards if anything bad was to happen to your friend because we allowed him to leave the house before he was in a fit state to be moved? Of course Mr. Pottinger says so—" Mr. Pottinger was the doctor. "Of course Mr. Pottinger says so, because he thinks he has been so long here, and he doesn't understand."
"But Mr. Pottinger would like to keep a patient."
"Oh no; he's not at all that sort of man. He'd think of mamma,—the trouble I mean of having a stranger in the house. But you know mamma would think nothing of that, especially for such an intimate friend of yours."
Augustus turned slightly round so as to look more fully into his sister's face, and he saw that a tear was gathered in the corner of her eye. She perceived his glance and partly shrank under it, but she soon recovered herself and answered it. "I know what you mean," she said, "and if you choose to think so, I can't help it. But it is horrible—horrible—" and then she stopped herself, finding that a little sob would become audible if she trusted herself to further words.
"You know what I mean, Mad?" he said, putting his arm affectionately round her waist. "And what is it that I mean? Come; you and I never have any secrets;—you always say so when you want to get at mine. Tell me what it is that I mean."
"I haven't got any secret."
"But what did I mean?"