She was alone, Gracie, the black sheep, having been sent to school at the close of the Christmas holidays, and Jeanie being confined to the house with a severe cold. Olive, having become more and more her father's constant companion, disdained shopping expeditions. The two elder boys and Pat were all at a neighbouring school as weekly boarders, and though she missed them Avery had it not in her heart to regret the arrangement. The Vicarage might at times seem dreary, but it had become undeniably an abode of peace.
Mrs. Lorimer was gradually recovering her strength, and Avery's care now centred more upon Jeanie than her mother. Though the child had recovered from her accident, she had not been really well all the winter, and the cold spring seemed to tax her strength to the uttermost. Tudor still dropped in at intervals, but he said little, and his manner did not encourage Avery to question him. Privately she was growing anxious about Jeanie, and she wished that he would be more communicative. He had absolutely forbidden book-work, a fiat to which Mr. Lorimer had yielded under protest.
"The child will grow up a positive dunce," he had declared.
To which Tudor had brusquely rejoined, "What of it?"
But his word was law so far as Jeanie was concerned, and Mr. Lorimer had relinquished the point with the sigh of one submitting to the inevitable. He did not like Lennox Tudor, but for some reason he always avoided an open disagreement with him.
It was of Jeanie that Avery was thinking as she stood there huddled against the railings while the sleet beat a fierce tattoo on her levelled umbrella and streamed from it in rivers on to the ground. She even debated with herself if it seemed advisable to turn and enter the doctor's dwelling, and try to get him to speak frankly of the matter as he had spoken once before.
She dismissed the idea, however, reflecting that he would most probably be out, and she was on the point of collecting her forces to make a rush for another sheltered spot further on when the front door opened unexpectedly behind her, and Tudor himself came forth bareheaded into the rain.
"What are you doing there, Mrs. Denys?" he said. "Why don't you come inside?"
He opened the gate for her, and took her parcels without waiting for a reply. And Avery, still with her umbrella poised against the blast, smiled her thanks and passed in.
The hair grew far back on Tudor's forehead, it was in fact becoming scanty on the top of his head; and the raindrops glistened upon it as he entered behind Avery. He wiped them away, and then took off his glasses and wiped them also.