When he had left her, she mentioned her fears to her confidante and shadow, Miss Brewer.
"Do you not see a change in Mr. Dale?" she asked.
"A change! What kind of change?"
"Do you not perceive an alteration in his appearance? In plainer words, do you not think him looking very ill?"
Miss Brewer, generally so impassive, started, and looked at her patroness with a gaze in which alarm was plainly visible.
She had hazarded so much in order to bring about a marriage between Douglas and her patroness; and what if mortality's dread enemy, Death, should forbid the banns?
"Ill!" she exclaimed; "do you think Mr. Dale is ill?"
"I do, indeed; and he confesses as much himself, though he makes light of the matter. He talks of low fever. I cannot tell you how much he has alarmed me."
"There may be nothing serious in it," answered Miss Brewer, with some hesitation. "One is so apt to take alarm about trifles which a doctor would laugh at. I dare say Mr. Dale only requires change of air. A London life is not calculated to improve any one's health."
"Perhaps that is the cause of his altered appearance," replied Paulina, only too glad to be reassured as to her lover's safety. "I will beg him to take change of air. But he has promised to see a doctor to-morrow: when he comes to me in the afternoon I shall hear what the doctor has said."