"I knew it!" she murmured huskily, "I felt that something was wrong with him. Don't laugh at me," she went on fiercely, for the smile had crept into his face again, "I tell you I felt it. It was as if some one had passed over my grave. Blair nearly dead! And you never told me! What brutes men can be!" and the angry tears crowded into her eyes.
"Don't blame me," he said. "It was Blair's fault. I should have written and asked you to help me nurse him, but he wouldn't permit me to tell any one, even the earl."
"But why not?" she demanded.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"As well ask the wind why it blows north instead of south, or east, or west. Blair is whimsical; besides, he hates any fuss, and—forgive me, Violet—but he may have known that you would have made a fuss."
"I would have gone to him to the other end of the world, and have given my life to save his, if you call that making a fuss!" she retorted angrily.
"Exactly," he said; "and that is just what Blair didn't want."
"Where was he, and what was it?" she asked, dashing the tears from her eyes with a gesture that was almost savage.
"He got a fever at Paris," said Mr. Austin Ambrose promptly. "It was a narrow squeak for him; but we pulled him through."
Violet Graham's face went white, and her lips shut tightly.