He was eating an egg at the time, and he did not speak immediately: his attention seemed almost equally divided between regarding me and finishing the egg.
"What you young ladies might call alarmingly ill, we old doctors might not," were his words, when he at length spoke.
"Can she speak?"
"Oh, yes."
"And is sufficiently well to understand, if any one speaks to her?"
"Quite so. Don't trouble yourself, my dear, about Lady Chandos. I trust she will be all right with time."
Not another word did I get from him. He began talking of the weather; and then took up a newspaper until Mr. Chandos came back. As I was leaving them alone after breakfast, Mr. Chandos spoke to me in a half-grave, half-jesting tone.
"You are one of the family, you know, Miss Hereford, and may be asked to keep its affairs close, just as Emily would be were she here. Don't mention that I went to Warsall in the night—as you have now heard I did go. It is of no use to make the household uneasy."
And, as if to enforce the words, Dr. Laken gave three or four emphatic nods. I bowed and withdrew.
To see lady Chandos? How was it to be done? And, in spite of Dr. Laken's reassuring answer, I scarcely knew what to believe. Hill went about with a solemn face, silent as the grave; and an impression pervaded the household that something was very much amiss in the west wing. My impression was, that there was a great deal of unaccountable mystery somewhere.