“Mr. Vernon Brander?” she asked, in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Oh, Mr. Mitchell, you are good, then, after all!” she said, with naive earnestness and gratitude.
“Don’t be too sure of that. But I do keep my word. He’s ill, you say?”
“Mat Oldshaw has just told me that he is in a fever.”
“And you are going to see him? What would your father say?”
“I can’t help it. I must: I must. He has no friends to visit him.”
“Oh, yes, he has. Mark my words: as soon as she hears of it, his sister-in-law will fly to his side.”
Olivia seemed to shrink into herself with a shiver at these words. Her warm-hearted outburst of grateful confidence was over.
“What do you mean to imply?” she asked, coldly.