If it had been embarrassing to evade Cicely's questions in June it became doubly so as the months passed, and the pretext of Justine's ill-health grew more and more difficult to sustain. And in the following March Amherst was suddenly called from Hanaford by the news that the little girl herself was ill. Serious complications had developed from a protracted case of scarlet fever, and for two weeks the child's fate was uncertain. Then she began to recover, and in the joy of seeing life come back to her, Mr. Langhope and Amherst felt as though they must not only gratify every wish she expressed, but try to guess at those they saw floating below the surface of her clear vague eyes.
It was noticeable to Mrs. Ansell, if not to the others, that one of these unexpressed wishes was the desire to see her stepmother. Cicely no longer asked for Justine; but something in her silence, or in the gesture with which she gently put from her other offers of diversion and companionship, suddenly struck Mrs. Ansell as more poignant than speech.
"What is it the child wants?" she asked the governess, in the course of one of their whispered consultations; and the governess, after a moment's hesitation, replied: "She said something about a letter she wrote to Mrs. Amherst just before she was taken ill—about having had no answer, I think."
"Ah—she writes to Mrs. Amherst, does she?"
The governess, evidently aware that she trod on delicate ground, tried at once to defend herself and her pupil.
"It was my fault, perhaps. I suggested once that her little compositions should take the form of letters—it usually interests a child more—and she asked if they might be written to Mrs. Amherst."
"Your fault? Why should not the child write to her step-mother?" Mrs. Ansell rejoined with studied surprise; and on the other's murmuring: "Of course—of course——" she added haughtily: "I trust the letters were sent?"
The governess floundered. "I couldn't say—but perhaps the nurse...."
That evening Cicely was less well. There was a slight return of fever, and the doctor, hastily summoned, hinted at the possibility of too much excitement in the sick-room.