"I declare you will make me vain, Annette."
"That would be impossible; you could not be vain, Mr. George--you are far too sensible and good. It is singular to see how wonderfully well I have been since you have been here. On the morning after your arrival I felt as though I were going to have one of my wretched attacks, and Mrs. Stothard said it was because I had talked too much, and been too much excited the previous evening. But it passed off; and though I don't think I have ever talked so much to anyone in my life before, and certainly was never so interested in anyone's conversation, there has been no recurrence of it, and I have been perfectly well."
The bright look had passed away from George's face, and he was regarding her now with earnest eyes.
"If I thought that had actually been accomplished by my presence, I should be happy indeed; more happy in expectation of the future than in thinking over the past."
"In expectation of the future!" repeated the girl, pondering over the words. "Oh yes, surely; you are going away now, but you will come again to walk with me, and to talk with me; and you are only going away for a time. How strange I never thought of this before."
As she said these words she crept closer to him; and he, bending down, took her small white hand between his, and looked into her face with a long gaze of deep compassion and great love.
"Yes, Annette," he said, "I will come again, and I hope before very long. You must understand that this time, these past few weeks, have been quite as happy to me as you say they have been to you; that if you have found me different from anyone you have ever known, I, in my turn, have never seen anyone like you--anyone in whom I could take such interest, for whom I could do so much."
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly, and at that moment the door opened, and Paul entered hurriedly. He gave a short low whistle as he marked the group before him, then advancing hurriedly, he said:
"George, it is all over, my boy; the storm we have been expecting so long has burst at last. My mother and I have just had a very bad quarter of an hour together."
During the foregoing conversation Mrs. Stothard, sitting in her room, heard the sound of the spring-bell which was suspended over her bed; the handle of this bell was in Mrs. Derinzy's apartments, and it was only used under exceptional circumstances, such as at times of Annette's illness, or when Mrs. Derinzy required instant communication with the nurse.