“What a pity!” she murmured. “Shall I come with you?”
He shook his head.
“No need for two of us to go on a fool’s errand,” he grumbled.
He crossed the lawn, passed down a gravel path, and, opening the postern gate, made his way into the lane which divided the Great House and the Little House. A moment or two later he was ushered into Madame’s drawing-room.
“You did not mind coming, Ralph?” she asked a little anxiously.
“As a rule,” he admitted, selecting a chair close to her couch, “I prefer my evenings undisturbed. Since you expressed a wish to see me, however, I am here.”
His tone seemed scarcely propitious. She looked at him wistfully. The years, she decided, had treated him hardly. There was little of sympathy in his face, little left of gentleness. Almost from the first she felt that her task was hopeless.
“Sir Bertram came down to see me this afternoon,” she began.
He nodded without speech, and waited.
“He comes down every other day when he is at Ballaston,” she went on. “No one in the world, Ralph, has ever been so kind to me.”