"Yes."
She spoke quite quietly, but her eyes involuntarily widened and her lips parted. She put her hand to her bosom, felt the stiffness of paper there, and then the hand fell at her side again, and she sat looking at the fire.
"You recollect," resumed George Brudenell, with a reluctant troubled glance at her averted face, "that I told you then how perfectly aware I was that the post you wished to fill was completely below your capabilities—that in it you would be thrown away, in short—and that at the best it could only be considered as an occupation for you until something better should offer?"
"I remember, sir."
The Doctor hesitated; that "sir," with its stiffness, its cool, formal, respect, jarred upon him more and more day by day; and she hardly ever failed to use it. He was too diffident to remonstrate with a few gay words, as a more confident, easy man would have done, and chafed under it in silence.
"I am happy to tell you that something has offered."
It was a lie, and he knew it; the thought of losing her, cold and statuesque as she was to him, made him miserable, filled his heart with a keen pain—a pain which had brought very near the inevitable revelation that he was bound to make to himself. Alexia raised her head and looked at him, but she did not speak. He went on:
"It is in the family of one of my patients—not as governess, but as companion to his wife. They are wealthy, and she is a refined, cultivated, and kindhearted woman; you could, I think, hardly fail to be comfortable with her, if you care to accept the post." He paused again, but finding her still silent, went on. "That you would be upon terms of perfect equality I need not say. This lady—Mrs. Latimer— would like to see you, if you care to think further of it."
Alexia looked into his face with her great sombre eyes.
"Sir, do you then wish me to leave here?"