"You shall go away, darling," he said, tenderly.
"But, Earle," she said, "my father and Lady Linleigh are enjoying the season so much, they have so many engagements, I cannot bear to say anything about going."
"Then I will say it for you. I shall tell Lord Linleigh, to-morrow, that you have exhausted yourself, and that you must have a few weeks of quiet at Linleigh Court."
"What will he say, Earle?"
"If I judge him rightly, darling, he will say little, but he will act at once; before this time next week you will be at Linleigh."
"Do you really think so? I am so glad," yet she shivered again as she spoke. "I long to go to Linleigh, Earle, yet I have such a strange feeling about it, a strange presentiment, a foreboding; surely no evil, no danger awaits me at Linleigh. Do you know, I could fancy death standing at the threshold waiting with outstretched arms to catch me." Again her voice died away with a half-hysterical sob.
Earle bent over her and kissed her.
"My darling, you are fanciful, you are tired. I am so glad you have trusted me; it is high time you were attended to. These nervous fancies are enough to drive you mad; the evil has gone further than I thought. Doris, my love, my sweet, it is only the reaction from over-fatigue that gives you these ideas, nothing else; what awaits you but a future bright as your own beauty? What shall I live for except to love and to serve and to shield you?"
"Earle," she cried suddenly, "do you know what I wish?"
A long shining tress of golden hair had fallen over her shoulders, and she sat twining it round her white fingers.