The visit at Chislehurst restored her health, and shortly after her return to Knightswell friends came to stay with her. Parties succeeded each other through the winter; she would not hunt—she did not clearly know why—but her stables were used by those who did. When, at the end of February, she was a whole week without guests, an uneasy loneliness possessed her.
Mr. Vissian visited her during that week. In September, that dread month of solitude, she had asked him if he had news from Mr. Kingcote; but the rector had then heard nothing. He was now, however, in a position to answer more satisfactorily, when she again asked the question. It was late in the afternoon; they were by the fire in the drawing-room, drinking tea.
“Kingcote? Oh, yes!” said Mr. Vissian. “He has gone to live in Norwich. I thought I should never hear from him again; but I find he has been seriously ill.”
“Ill?” Isabel asked, not immediately. “Is that lately?”
“He speaks of the end of last year; a bad fever of some kind, which nearly ended his days—those are his words.”
She murmured an “Indeed!” and looked at the fire.
“What is he doing in Norwich?” was her next question.
“Well, I was somewhat surprised to hear that he has turned bookseller, has a shop there.”
Isabel looked at him without astonishment, but rather as if she were reflecting on what he had told her.
“He writes in a melancholy way,” the rector pursued. “Circumstances have urged him to this step, it seems. I fear he will find business, even that of a bookseller, very uncongenial. He is a man of singular delicacy of temperament; quite unfitted to face practical troubles, I should say. Possibly you know that he has relatives dependent upon him.”