From that day Mrs. Knight had never complained of her sad condition, and tied to the narrow limits of two rooms though she was, she somehow managed the household, and continued to be a real helpmate to her husband. People said she was a wonderful woman, and marvelled how she contrived to get such good servants; but it must have been a hard heart that would not render faithful service to the doctor's invalid wife.
On this bright October morning Mrs. Knight sat, or rather reclined, in her invalid's chair; the tray holding her breakfast things on a small table close by. Anna, an elderly woman who had nursed all the children in turn, and who, since the day of her mistress's accident, had been her chief attendant, had placed a small bunch of autumn violets in a vase near at hand, but hearing her master's footsteps on the stairs she went into the bedroom that led out of the sitting-room, closing the door after her.
"How soon you have finished breakfast!" Mrs. Knight exclaimed. "I hope you have made a good meal, John."
The invalid was a pretty woman still, with fair hair and blue eyes. Her husband seated himself by her side and answered her cheerfully, but she was quick to note a shadow on his brow.
"What is it?" she asked anxiously.
"I have had news of my dead brother's wife. She is very ill—dying she herself thinks—and she wants to see me."
"Oh, John, you will go to her at once, will you not? But where is she?"
"In London. I have the address here. Yes, I shall go to her at once, as you say. Gray must manage by himself to-day."
Mr. Gray was Dr. Knight's assistant. He did not live in the house, but his lodgings were only a few doors away.
"I shall catch the fast train to town, and will telegraph to you after I have seen my sister-in-law. It is strange she should send for me, seeing we were never friends. It will be a painful meeting. I cannot forget that when my poor brother was lying in his last illness she was going to balls and entertainments, begrudging even the few minutes she spent by his bedside. She was ever the worldliest of women, and what poor Leonard saw in her to love I never could imagine!"