The next morning she went down to East Angels. Garda received her joyously. "Oh, Margaret, mamma is better, really better."
It was true. The fever had subsided, the symptoms of pneumonia had passed away; the patient was very weak, but Dr. Kirby was now hopeful. He had taken his mother back to Gracias, but the kind-hearted Betty remained, sending by the Kirbys a hundred messages of regret to her dearest Katrina that their separation must still continue.
Later in the day Margaret paid her first visit to the sick-room. Mrs. Thorne was lying with her eyes closed, looking very white and still; but as soon as she perceived who it was that had entered, a change came over her; she still looked white, but she seemed more alive; she raised herself slightly on one arm, and beckoned to the visitor.
"Now don't try to talk, that's a dear," said Mrs. Carew, who was sitting on the other side of the bed, fanning the sick woman with tireless hand.
Mrs. Thorne slowly turned her head towards Betty, and surveyed her solemnly with eyes which seemed to have grown during her illness to twice their former size. "Go—away," she said, in her whispering voice, which preserved even in its faintness the remains of her former clear utterance.
"What?" said the astonished Betty, not sure that she had heard aright.
"I wish—you would go—away," repeated Mrs. Thorne, slowly. And with her finger she made a little line in the air, which seemed to indicate, like a dotted curve on a map, Betty's course from the bed to the door.
Betty gave her fan to Margaret. Incapable of resentment, the good soul whispered to Garda, as she passed: "They're very often so, you know—sick people; they get tired of seeing the same persons about them, of course, and I am sure it's very natural. I'll come back later, when she's asleep."
"I was not tired of seeing her, that wasn't it," murmured Mrs. Thorne, who had overheard this aside. "But I wanted to see Margaret Harold alone, and without any fuss made about it; and the first step was to get her out of the room. Now, Edgarda, you go too. Go down to the garden, where Mrs. Carew will not see you; stay there a while, the fresh air will do you good."
"But, mamma, I don't think I ought to leave you."