“Oh, yes. He’s only a bit weak and light-headed from loss of blood. This time three days he will be miles away.”
“And I shall never see him again. Well, I am sorry. I must go now; he seems to be sleeping quietly. Good-night, Margaret.”
For one moment more, Hilary felt her soft, cool finger-tips upon his eyelids; then he realized that she was gone, and nothing left to him but dreams of her.
“What is your name?” he asked of Margaret in the morning, while he was still pondering how much of his over-night dreams had been true.
“Margaret, my lord.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” he said, irritably and relapsed into silence.
Meantime, Lord Carthew had also spent the night in dreaming of Stella Cranstoun, and was looking eagerly forward to meeting her the next morning.
When the breakfast-gong summoned him, he was shown into a room of moderate size where the table was laid for two, and behind the tea-urn he found the fair Stella awaiting him, with Lady Cranstoun’s apologies for her absence.
“Mamma breakfasts in bed, if a cup of tea can be called breakfast, and Dr. Graham had to leave for London half an hour ago,” Stella explained, while Lord Carthew decided that by daylight, in blue serge with a collar and cuffs of point lace as her only ornaments, she seemed, if possible, even more desirable than in her riding-habit or her white silk evening-gown on the preceding day.
Questioned about his friend, Lord Carthew declared that Hilary had a good night and was certainly no worse.