"You make it very hard for me to go," I ventured.
"I shall think of you," she replied. "I shall long for your strength and judgment. I must think it over, more, and try to decide on a line of action. It may be—I won't promise—that I shall send for you to come down."
"I'll come at a moment's notice!" I exclaimed. "Oh, do let me help in some way!"
"Would you?" She clasped her hands to her breast again and sighed, as if I had really helped her by my promise. Then, "I'm glad to be able to know that. Miss Joy likes you. I think you have a rare sympathy for her condition. It's a relief. Then we'll leave it that way. So you'll go?"
"To-morrow morning," I answered.
VII
We met, next morning, in the library, for I could move alone, now, and had gone down early. My hostess, dressed in white duck, was in her most exquisitely graceful mood, quite the delicate, refined, intense woman I had first known.
"Do you really think that it's safe for you to leave to-day!" she asked, when I had announced my intention to her. "I am afraid we shall miss you very much, Mr. Castle. I feel quite as if I had made a friend."
"If you do, it more than repays me for my accident, Miss Fielding. It only remains for you to prove it by permitting me to do something for you."
She smiled quickly. "Stay here a while longer, then!"