Her ladyship faintly responded to his greeting.
“There, sit down, my dear, and compose yourself. Why, you are trembling as though with cold, while I am boiling with perspiration and bad temper!”
Lady Elaine obeyed, smiling in a wintry sort of way.
“Perhaps it was my duty to see your father first,” the old soldier began, “but as he is anything but a sympathetic man where young people’s love affairs are concerned, I have come direct to you, my dear.”
Lady Elaine paled, and her heart throbbed wildly.
“You have heard?” she hazarded.
“I have heard that two young people who passionately love each other are trying their utmost to drift into the shoals of misery,” he replied, kindly.
“Has Sir Harold told you anything?” she demanded, proudly.
It seemed to her a strange thing to do. Why should he make their little differences public?
The colonel was quick to notice this.