"But are you really better?"
"I am well enough, now," he answered, the gloom on his face breaking. "At least, I should be if—I mean that I am as well as I can expect to be."
"Oh, Mr. Chandos! I think you are only saying this to satisfy me."
"Anne—I must call you 'Anne;' I did so last night, you know, and I cannot go back to the formality of 'Miss Hereford'——"
"Yes, yes, please call me it," I interrupted all too earnestly.
He touched the tip of my shoulder, looking down with a sad sweet smile into my eyes and my blushing face.
"Anne, whether I am ill or well, you must not make it of moment to you. I wish it might be otherwise."
I felt fit to strike myself. Had I so betrayed my own feelings? The soft blush of love turned to the glowing red of shame, and I could but look down, in hope of hiding it.
"My little friend! my dear little friend!" he softly whispered, as if to atone for the former words, "in saying I wish it might be otherwise—and perhaps I owe it to you to say as much—the subject must close. You and I may be the best friends living, Anne; and that is all I can be to you, or to any one."
Quitting the parlour rather hastily, he encountered Dr. Laken in the hall, who had just come down from the west wing. Mr. Chandos said something in a low tone; I presume, by the answer, it was an inquiry as to what he thought of his patient.