"You do not know how much we miss you from our home circle," the charming Lady Clive resumes, vivaciously. "You must not leave us when you get well, dear. Make your home with us until you get settled for life. You will be so lonely if you try to live alone with a chaperon. Won't you promise to stay?"
"I will think of it," Lady Vera answers, gratefully, while tears rise to her dark eyes.
Lady Clive comes to sit with her often, sending away the prim nurse, and installing herself in her place. She chats vivaciously, retailing bits of society gossip, telling of all the great people who have left cards of condolence for the young countess, of the lovers who are all desoles over her illness; of Sir Harry's regret and the children's clamorous despair. But, strange to say, she utterly forgets the existence of her brother, Captain Lockhart, or, perhaps, deems the subject uninteresting to her guest.
He has gone away, Lady Vera tells herself; yet she, in some vague way, feels that he has not. She hears a step in the hall outside her door sometimes—a manly step that is not Sir Harry Clive's, but which has a firm, remembered ring in it that has power to send the warm blood flying from her heart to her face.
When she is well enough to sit up in her white dressing-gown, lying back in a great, cushioned arm-chair, the children are admitted to see her. They spend a noisy five minutes with their friend, then the nurse bundles them out, closing the door on their clamorous tongues, but not so quickly but that Countess Vera catches Mark's disgusted dictum in the hall:
"Oh, Uncle Phil! Vera isn't a bit pretty any more. Her face is all white and thin, and her eyes are so big."
So he is here. Her subtle intuitions had been right.
Impulsively she turns to the prim old nurse.
"Open that door, and ask Captain Lockhart to come in here."
He comes, eager, smiling, filled with wonder, yet outwardly calm.