"You are ill," he said, trying to speak lightly under his sudden alarm. "Let me have a better look at you." He turned the light to a full blaze. Her wonted paleness was warmed to a sinister flush about the eyes and the upper face, and, though her eyes flashed bravely at him in denial, the bones were sharp above her hollowed cheeks, and her once rounded chin had become lean. She shivered as she spoke.
"I'm a little exhausted by the heat; nothing more. Lower the light, please. I don't care to be studied just now."
"But I know you're not well. You ought to go off some place. Get out to pasture at once. You've been 'over-packed,' kept too long on the trail."
"You, too? They all say it. It's so easy to say."
"And easy to do."
"It's hard to do, and yet I'm afraid I must. I've felt that I ought to be here with my charges—you have been one of them." She brightened with a sudden inspiration. "You need rest yourself. Your face shows it. You've been depressed a long time, you are worried now. Let us both rest. My aunt up at Kensington has wanted me there—the aunt my sister is with. She'd be glad to have you as well. It's a big house and she likes young people. There! Will you go with me?"
She rose, waiting, electrified, for his answer. Instantly he felt that he wished this above all things. There he could find himself, fortify his soul for any number of Teevans—perhaps fortify her own.
"I'll go," he answered heartily. "It will be good for us both."
She fell into her chair with a long "Ah!" then she gave the purring little laugh, like that of a child made happy. "We shall go for two blessed weeks and forget this place with its wretched tangles."
"I'm your man!" he said, rising and taking her hand with his old boyish enthusiasm. "Can we start early?"