He preferred putting this on one side, that he might obtain the better mental view of a picture that stuck very agreeably in his memory. This was of Angela, all flushed and softened, bending down to him from her horse as she sat mounted for her departure.
“He is very ill and overcome—the poor servant,” she had said. “Be gentle with him for my sake.”
And he had kissed her gloved hand, and taken rash oath that her whim should be his law. And beyond this, I will swear, he never reflected that she had made nothing of the presumed villainy of the man, as it affected his master’s safety, or that she had asked him, Robert Tuke, to take care of himself for her sake.
He came out of luminous retrospection to find his maid’s eyes fixed upon him with intently mournful regard.
“Come here, Darda,” said he.
The girl obeyed at once; and stood mutely at his side.
“Your brother remains in bed, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Is he ill, or merely shamming?”
“He is broken down—broken down and very ill.”