And with a little smile and such a pretty glow in her cheeks, she passed him by. He bowed and smiled faintly too, and for a moment stood gazing after her into the now vacant shadow of the old oak wainscoting, as young Numa might after his vanished Egeria, with an unspoken, burning grief and a longing at his heart.
"I'm sure she can't like me—I'm sure she dislikes me. So much the better—Heaven knows I'm glad of it."
And with an aching heart he knocked, turned the handle, and entered the pretty apartment in which Lady Alice, her thin shoulders curved, as she held her hands over the fire, was sitting alone.
She looked at him over her shoulder strangely from her hollow eyes, without moving or speaking for a time. He bowed gravely, and said—
"I have this moment received your little note, Lady Alice, and have hastened to obey."
She sat up straight and sighed.
"Thanks—I have not been very well—so nervous—so very nervous," she repeated, without removing her sad and clouded gaze from his face.
"We all heard with regret that you had not been so well," said he.
"Well, we'll not talk of it—you're very good—I'm glad you've come—very nervous, and almost wishing myself back at Wardlock—where indeed I should have returned, only that I should have been wishing myself back again before an hour—miserably nervous."
And Lady Alice sniffed at her smelling-salts, and added—