“I don’t think that anything you have told me, however, is at all incompatible with his being Miss Derwent’s accepted suitor. His distress is probably due to anxiety about her health.” I said this, hoping he would contradict me.
Whether he would have done so or not I shall never know, for at that point our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of his sister; and as it had been previously arranged that she was to drive me over to the Derwents, we started off at once.
At last I was to see my lady again! It seemed too good to be true.
Having given our names to the butler, we were ushered into a large drawing-room, redolent with flowers. So this was May’s home.
I glanced eagerly about. These chairs had held her slight form; at that desk she had written, and these rugs had felt the impress of her little feet. A book lay near me on a small table. I passed my fingers lovingly over it. This contact with an object she must often have touched gave me an extraordinary pleasure,—a pleasure so great as to make me forget everything else,—and I started guiltily, and tried to lay the book down unobserved, when a tall, grey-haired lady stepped from the veranda into the room.
Mrs. Derwent greeted Miss Cowper affectionately, and welcomed me with quiet grace.
“Fred has told me so much about you, Dr. Fortescue, that I am very glad to meet you at last.”
Then, turning to Alice Cowper, she said: “May wants very much to see you. She is lying in a hammock on the piazza, where it is much cooler than here. Dr. Fortescue and I will join you girls later.”
“You have been told of my daughter’s condition?” she inquired, as soon as we were alone.
“Yes. I hear, however, that there has been a marked improvement since Sunday.”