Nevertheless, when Ermine’s wheeled chair came to the door the next afternoon, he came with it, and walked by her side up the hill, talking of what had been absolutely the last call she had made—a visit when they had both been riding with the young Beauchamps.
“Suppose any one had told me then I should make my next visit with you to take care of me, how pleased I should have been,” said Ermine, laughing, and taking as usual an invalid’s pleasure in all the little novelties only remarked after long seclusion. That steep, winding, pebbly road, with the ferns and creeping plants on its rocky sides, was a wonderful panorama to her, and she entreated for a stop at the summit to look down on the sea and the town; but here Grace came out to them full of thanks and hopes, little knowing that to them the event was a very great one. When at the glass doors of the garden entrance, Ermine trusted herself to the Colonel’s arm, and between him and her crutch crossed the short space to the morning room, where Rachel rose from her sofa, but wisely did not come forward till her guest was safely placed in a large easy chair.
Rachel then held out her hand to the Colonel, and quietly said, “Thank you,” in a subdued manner that really touched him, as he retreated quickly and left them together. Then Rachel sat down on a footstool close to Ermine, and looked up to her. “Oh, it is so good of you to come to me! I would not have dared to think of it, but I just said I wished to get out for nothing but to go to you; and then he—Captain Keith-would go and fetch you.”
“As the nearest approach to fetching the moon, I suppose,” said Ermine, brightly. “It was very kind to me, for I was longing to see you, and I am glad to find you looking better than I expected.”
For in truth Rachel’s complexion had been little altered by her illness; and the subdued dejected expression was the chief change visible, except in the feebleness and tremulousness of all her movements. “Yes, I am better,” she said. “I ought to be, for he is so good to me.”
“Dear Rachel, I was so very glad to hear of this,” said Ermine, bending down to kiss her.
“Were you? I thought no one could be that cared for him,” said Rachel.
“I cared more for him the week that you were ill than ever I had done before.”
“Grace tells me of that,” said Rachel, “and when he is here I believe it. But, Miss Williams, please look full at me, and tell me whether everybody would not think—I don’t say that I could do it—but if every one would not think it a great escape for him if I gave him up.”
“No one that could really judge.”