For two days before she died, Eleanor was unconscious, but it was not until after her death that Philip said, with heart-broken sincerity:
"I gave up hope from the moment she fell ill. From the first, I really knew that she would never get well again."
IV
Philip did not want to send Lily to school. He and his wife had been at one upon this point. He regretted even the three months that she had spent at the convent, although he remarked at intervals for long afterwards that a girls' school and a convent were not at all the same thing.
"Besides, my little pet, you were only there for a month or two, and you were not at all well when you came away. It wasn't at all a success."
"But that was years ago," Lily protested. "I should like it very much, now, or best of all if only you would send me to a proper school, Father."
For nearly four years, ever since her mother's death, she had asked at intervals to be sent to school.
At first, Philip had answered her with a sort of mournful playfulness.
"What! Doesn't my little girl get enough lessons at home? We must talk to Miss Cleeve, and see if she can't manage an extra hour or two on Saturday afternoons—shall we, Lily?"