So saying, he went off to his study, presumably to write his Sunday sermon—perhaps to read the newspaper.
His nieces put on their hats again, and went out and had a game of tennis. Tennis between sisters is a little slow; and after a time Laura said—
“Look here, Dolly, supposing we go up to the churchyard and see where she has left those flowers. There would be no harm in that, would there?”
Her sister warmly agreed to the suggestion, and the two set forth on their quest with eager alacrity.
They discovered the object of their walk without any difficulty; for the lovely white lilies were quite a prominent object on the green turf.
Miss West had laid them upon the new grave—the child’s grave. How strange!
CHAPTER XL.
A FORLORN HOPE.
The hurried expedition to the Holt Farm, and subsequent visit to Monk’s Norton, had not agreed with Miss West. She had a most mysterious relapse, inexplicable alike to her father and her medical adviser.
The former had left her comparatively better, ere starting for a long day in London. Little did he guess that the invalid had followed him by the next train, had given Josephine a holiday, had travelled into Hampshire, and gone through more mental and bodily stress than would exhaust a woman in robust health, had returned but an hour before him in a prostrate condition—and had subsequently kept her room for days.
“I cannot account for it,” the doctor said. “Great physical debility. But, besides this, there is some mental trouble.”