He started slightly.
“Saving myself? What can your meaning be, Mrs. Horneck?”
“I tell you I was shocked beyond measure when I entered this room and saw you,” she replied. “You are ill, sir; you are very ill, and the change to the garden at Barton will do you good. You have been neglecting yourself—yes, and some one who will nurse you back to life. Oh, Barton is the place for you!”
“There is no place I should like better to die at,” said he.
“To die at?” she said. “Nonsense, sir! you are I trust, far from death still. Nay, you will find life, and not death, there. Life is there for you.”
“Your daughter Mary is there,” said he.
CHAPTER XXXI.
He wrote that very evening, after Mrs. Horneck had taken her departure, one of his merry letters to Katherine Bunbury, telling her that he had resolved to yield gracefully to her entreaties to visit her, and meant to leave for Barton the next day. When that letter was written he gave himself up to his thoughts.