Gloomily she ran ribbons into under-linen, made the bed, and went about her usual sick-room duties. All the time she was wondering whether she could not "say something." The difficulty lay in thinking what to say.
Virginia was very quiet—unusually so. When Grover had gone out, she locked the door, put on a dressing-gown, and sat up by the fire. She found herself stronger than she had thought. Her fever having passed, she was all right. She was certain that there was no reason why she should not travel on Wednesday; but she determined to say nothing about it to her mother.
When next Mrs. Mynors came in to see her, she was lying with eyes half closed, and whispered that she felt very weak, and was not equal to talking. This was satisfactory, and the visitor crept away.
Next morning the girl, with the elasticity of youth, awoke feeling very much better. Grover could not but remark it. Yet, when her mother came in, she was languid and monosyllabic.
She could not, however, escape a renewal of the bombardment of yesterday, with regard to her return to Omberleigh. Mrs. Mynors brought in her work after lunch, and attacked the subject with determination. She was met with a meekness which surprised her. Virginia owned that she was at present too unwell to face anything difficult—to undergo any trying experience. Next week it would be different. She thought they might postpone serious discussion. The wind was somewhat taken out of her opponent's sails, but there was no doubt this depression and invalidism was satisfactory in her eyes. She made, as she thought, quite certain that her daughter had no intention of travelling at present.
"I'm sure Osbert does not expect me. He has not written at all. He is waiting to hear again, I suppose."
"Not written! When I told him how ill you are! Oh, Virgie, what a brute the man is!"
The speaker omitted to mention that in her letter to her son-in-law she had begged him not to write to Virgie, as his letters "agitated her unaccountably," and that she herself had heard from him that morning to the effect that he hoped a doctor had been called in.
She went away after a while, and wrote to Gerald in town.
"I think there is no doubt she is growing to see that we are right," she wrote. "I am letting her come along at her own pace. The discovery that we know her secret has shaken her, and she has at least given up all idea of travelling at present. That being so, I shall run up to town to-morrow morning, as there are several things I must do. You and I can return here together in the evening. I will come up by the early express, and if you were to take tickets for the matinée at the Criterion, I should not object. One gets so bored here with invalids all day."