The baronet did not seem surprised.
“Of course we can’t keep you against your will,” he said. “But I am very sorry, and we shall miss you very much. Have you spoken to Lady Sarah about it?”
She saw that he too was striving to speak more calmly than he felt.
“No. I thought I ought to come to you first.”
“I can only repeat that I am more sorry than can say. And as for Caryl——”
He broke off, deeply moved. There was a pause, during which Rhoda noticed that though Lady Sarah appeared to be chattering idly to Jack she was watching with the keenest attention what went on between her husband and Caryl’s companion.
“Thank you,” said Rhoda. “I will say good-bye to Caryl at once, if I may.”
“You are going to-day, then? It’s rather sudden? For your own sake, if I might suggest, I should say you had better wait till to-morrow. You look tired, and unfit for a journey.”
She raised her eyes to his face and gave him one swift glance. There was a world of feeling in her own sensitive face as she looked at him: gratitude, regret, affection, and even reproach, all expressed themselves in that one quick up-look of her tender blue eyes.
And the answering look which Sir Robert threw at her was hardly less eloquent. There was in his grave face a look of earnest affection, and an expression of almost childlike helplessness in the face of an unexpected blow.