They need not have hurried; Leonore was not going to interrupt again. She had come to take a last look round, as she was not now dwelling there; but the sight just witnessed was enough to preclude any desire for further investigation, and she almost ran across the threshold which she was never more to enter.
It may be wondered at that none of her own people were with the hapless girl at such a moment—but a few words will explain this. A very few days before Godfrey Stubbs' sudden death, an outbreak of influenza, which was rife in the neighbourhood, had taken place at Boldero Abbey; and to the intense vexation of the general, he found himself laid by the heels, when it was above all things necessary and desirable that he should appear, clad in the full panoply of woe, at the funeral of his son-in-law.
He would go, he was sure he could go,—and he rose from his bed and tried, only to totter, trembling, back into it again.
Then he ordered up Sue, and sent messages to the younger ones. When it appeared that all were either sick or sickening, and that the doctor's orders were peremptory, he was made so much worse himself by wrathful impotence, that thereafter all was easy, and by the time the epidemic had abated, Leonore was no longer in her own house.
She was still, however, to her father's view a personage, and as such to be treated. Messages of affectionate condolence and sympathetic inquiry were despatched daily. Though he did not actually write with his own hand, he composed and dictated, and every epistle had to be submitted to him before it was sent—while each and all conveyed the emphatic declaration that, the very moment he was fit to travel, General Boldero would fly to his dear girl's side, to give her the benefit of his counsel and experience.
He had been for his first walk on the day Leonore's letter arrived which changed the face of everything.
Thereafter his influenza and all the other influenzas assumed astonishing proportions, and the trip to Liverpool which he had formerly assured Sue would do him all the good in the world, was not to be thought of. The weather was milder, but what of that? She had been against his going all along; and now when he had given in to her, she must needs wheel about face, and try to drive him to do what would send him back to bed again as sure as fate.
Sue had next suggested that she herself, or Maud should go. Sybil, the last to be attacked, was still in the doctor's hands.
The second proposition, however, met with no better fate than the first. It was madness to think of it; sheer madness to take a long, expensive—the speaker caught himself up and substituted "exhaustive"—journey, when there was no end to be attained thereby. Had he not said that Leo could come to them? Since she was coming, and since it appeared there was nothing to prevent her coming immediately, that settled the matter.
"You can put it civilly," conceded he; but on this occasion he sent no message, and did not ask to see the letter.