Only Dowie in secret trembled sometimes before the marvel of her. As Doctor Benton had imagined, she prayed forcefully.
"Lord, forgive me if I am a sinner—but for Christ's sake don't take the strange thing away from her until she's got something to hold on to. What would she do— What could she!"
Robin came into the Tower room on a fair morning carrying her pretty basket as she always did. She put it down on its table and went and stood a few minutes at a window looking out. The back of her neck, Dowie realised, was now as slenderly round and velvet white as it had been when she had dressed her hair on the night of the Duchess' dance. Dowie did not know that its loveliness had been poor George's temporary undoing; she only thought of it as a sign of the wonderful change. It had been waxen pallid and had shown piteous hollows.
She turned about and spoke.
"Dowie, dear, I am going to write to Lord Coombe."
Dowie's heart hastened its beat and she herself being conscious of the fact, hastened to answer in an unexcited manner.
"That'll be nice, my dear. His lordship'll be glad to get the good news you can give him."
She asked herself if she would not perhaps tell her something—something which would make the fourth time.
"Perhaps he's asked her to do it," she thought.