Tea was there, and she gave him some, and made one of those trivial remarks people are apt to make when wandering thoughts are the order of the day.
"Anne, I do not think Margaret will care to come here," he said suddenly, "and you think so too."
Mrs. Dorriman's delicate face flushed a little. "Margaret offers to come," she said after a little pause.
"I find business tires me more and more," he said, as it seemed to her, irrelevantly.
"I am sorry," she answered, looking a little anxiously in his direction.
"Why should we not all go to your house," he asked, as though putting the plainest and simplest question in the world.
"To Inchbrae! Oh, brother!" This sudden suggestion filled her with such intense happiness that she could get no further.
"I want Margaret to get well and I mean to resign my chairmanship and other things. I shall give up business. I want—rest."
His manner alarmed her, but she tried to compose herself, and to accept this new turn in her affairs quietly, and not to let him see how intensely this affected her.
She subdued her emotion and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, "It will be a long journey for Margaret and for poor Jean."