I rang for Burton. It was nine o'clock.
"Has Her Ladyship breakfasted yet, Burton?"
"Her Ladyship breakfasted at eight, and left the house at half-past, Sir Nicholas."
My heart sank. So I was going to have a lonely morning. She had said she wanted to go to her mother, I remembered now. I did not hurry to get up. The doctors were coming with the wonderful artist who is making my new foot, at twelve o'clock, and I am to have it on to-day for the first time. This would be a surprise for Alathea when she returned to lunch. I read my journal in bed, and thought over the whole of our acquaintance. Yes, certainly she has greatly changed in the last six weeks. And possibly I am nearer my goal than I could have dared to hope.
Now my method must be to be sweet to her, and not tease her any more.
How wonderful it will be when she does love me. I have not thought much about my own feelings lately. She has kept me so often irritated and angry, but I know that there is a steady advance, and that I love her more than ever.
To see her little mutinous rebellious face softening—?—it will be worth all the waiting. But meanwhile she is out, and I had better get up!
I wonder if all the hundreds of other fellows who lost a leg below the knee and were cripples for eighteen months felt the same as I did when the new limb was fixed, and they stood upon two feet again for the first time.
A strange, almost mad sense of exaltation filled me. I could walk! I was no longer a prisoner, dependent upon the devotion of attendants!
I should no longer have to have things placed within reach, and be made to realize impotency!