"You might have let me have a last ride with you," he said reproachfully.
"It won't be the last, I hope, but there is nothing to hinder you from joining us to-morrow," I said, feeling, however, rather blank as I made the suggestion.
"Thank you very much," he said sarcastically; "but I have not the least desire to make an unwelcome third."
"Make a welcome fourth, then," I said. "I dare say Agneta will be pleased to come too."
But this did not do either. He was in a very perverse mood that morning. It was a relief to me when he had departed, having lingered till it was necessary for him to ride at break-neck speed into Chelmsford if he would arrive punctually at his tutor's. I felt very anxious that he should do well in his examination, and gave him every wise admonition that my own experience could suggest. For his own sake, and for his father's, it would be a thousand pities if he failed again. Foolish boy as Jack often showed himself to be, I knew that he was brave and manly, and I believed, with my father, that he would make a fine soldier.
Hobbes had graciously given me permission to gather any flowers I pleased from his garden, so when Jack had gone I busied myself in making a nosegay, which I carried to the village and left at the door of the house which had been converted into a sanatorium for Paulina's benefit. On the way I encountered Mr. Dicks wandering aimlessly along. He was so changed that I hardly knew him. His air of almost aggressive self-complacency, as if he were for ever exulting in the thought of his own smartness, had vanished, and he looked profoundly melancholy. When he lifted his hat I saw that even the wisp of hair on his forehead, usually erect, lay flat and limp. His appearance inspired me with the fear that some alarming change in Paulina's condition had occurred, but it was not so. He was merely brooding on the idea that since, through scarlet fever, he had lost his wife and little son, it would probably rob him of his daughter also.
He seemed pleased to meet me, and turned back with me.
"I am looking for Poole," he said. "He ought to be here by now. If he sees the least cause for fear, I shall telegraph at once for one of the first physicians from London."
When we reached the gate of "Ivy House," he pointed out to me the windows of the room in which Paulina lay. Just then Miss Cottrell's head appeared above one of the muslin blinds. She smiled and nodded briskly as she saw us.
"She looks cheerful," I remarked. "I don't think she can be very uneasy about her patient."