"Is she ill, then?" The question came with sharpness.
"Yes, sir, very ill. The doctor is anxious to keep her as quiet as possible; but he thought it best she should see you, her heart is so set upon it."
Those words made Sir Arthur's own heart contract a little, and before his mental vision there flashed again the beautiful radiant face of the girl in the white gown, the girl who had stood beside the sun-dial, saying in her deep sweet voice—
"Love is the greatest thing in the world."
The words still rang in his brain as Elizabeth ushered him into a big bedroom, and his eyes fell upon the woman propped up with pillows, her face turned towards the door.
The radiant face of the girl beside the sun-dial seemed to fade slowly from his mind, whilst he stood silently looking at the woman in the bed, the woman who put out her hand to him with a faint smile, and said softly—
"It was good of you to come, Arthur. You will let us meet now as friends after all these years?"
The words were a question rather than an assertion, but he did not answer the question. He stood as though rooted to the floor, staring at her, in an astonishment too great at first for words. Then he said slowly—
"But I shouldn't have known you—I shouldn't have known you, Margaret. I can't believe——" He broke off abruptly, a tremor in his voice, and Margaret said gently—
"I daresay I am very much changed since you last saw me. In those days I was only a girl; now I am a woman, who has known so much of life—so very much of life. It seems as though my irresponsible girlhood belongs to another existence, and life has set its marks upon my face."