Uncle John regarded her with an air of supplicating nervousness.
"Come along, my dear," he said. "We haven't had a talk for weeks. Let's find a corner somewhere——"
They found a corner and then were both of them uncomfortable. The girl whom Uncle John had known and loved had had her tempers and intolerances, but she had also had her wonderful spontaneous affections and tendernesses.
Now she sat there looking straight before her and replying only in monosyllables to his questions.
She was saying to herself: "Shall I go? Shall I go?"
At last he said timidly:
"You'll see mother before you leave?"
"Yes," Rachel said.
"I'm afraid she's not very well."
"Not very well?" Rachel looked up at him sharply, Lord John stared away from her. No one had ever said that publicly before, Lord John himself wondered at his words when he had spoken them.