Ermine was the first to break silence. “Oh, Colin, you look worn and altered.”
“You don’t; you have kept your sunbeam face for me with the dear brown glow I never thought to have seen again. Why did they tell me you were an invalid, Ermine?”
“Have you not seen Alison?” she asked, supposing he would have known all.
“I saw her, but did not hear her name, till just now at luncheon, when our looks met, and I saw it was not another disappointment.”
“And she knows you are come to me?”
“It was not in me to speak to her till I had recovered you! One can forgive, but not forget.”
“You will do more when you know her, and how she has only lived and worked for me, dear Ailie, and suffered far more than I—”
“While I was suffering from being unable to do anything but live for you,” he repeated, taking up her words; “but that is ended now—” and as she made a negative motion of her head, “have you not trusted to me?”
“I have thought you not living,” she said; “the last I know was your letter to dear Lady Alison, written from the hospital at Cape Town, after your wound. She was ill even when it came, and she could only give it to Ailie for me.”
“Dear good aunt, she got into trouble with all the family for our sake; and when she was gone no one would give me any tidings of you.”