Lying on a sofa near the fire was the invalid boy. By merely looking at him you might see that he would never rally, though he fluctuated much. To-day he was, comparatively speaking, well. Little Maude was threading beads; and the two others, much younger, stood looking on—Reginald and Anne. Lady Margaret Cooper, having a fellow-feeling for an invalid, sat near the sick boy. Lord Hartledon sat apart at a table reading, and making occasional notes. The dowager, more cumbersome than ever, dozed on the other side of the hearth. She was falling into the habit of taking a nap after luncheon as well as after dinner. Lady Laura was in danger of convulsions every time she looked at the dowager. Never in all her life had she seen so queer an old figure. She and Anne stood together at an open window, the one eagerly asking questions, the other answering, all in undertones. Lady Laura had been away from her own home and kindred some twelve years, and it seemed to her half a lifetime.
"Anne, how was it?" she exclaimed. "It was a thing that always puzzled me, and I never came to the bottom of it. My husband said at the time I used to talk of it in my sleep."
"What do you mean?"
"About you and Val. You were engaged to each other; you loved him, and he loved you. How came that other marriage about?"
"Well, I can hardly tell you. I was at Cannes with mamma, and he fell into the meshes. We knew nothing about it until they were married. Never mind all that now; I don't care to recall it, and it is a very sore point with Val. The blame, I believe, lay chiefly with her."
Anne glanced at the dowager, to indicate whom she meant. Lady Laura's eyes followed the same direction, and she laughed.
"A painted old guy! She looks like one who would do it. Why doesn't some one put her under a glass case and take her to the British Museum? When news of the marriage came out to India I was thunderstruck. I wrote off at once to Val, asking all sorts of questions, and received quite a savage reply, telling me to mind my own business. That letter alone would have told me how Val repented; it was so unlike him. Do you know what I did?"
"What did you do?"
"Sent him another letter by return mail with only two words in it—'Elster's Folly.' Poor Val! She died of heart-disease, did she not?"
"Yes. But she seemed to have been ailing for some time. She was greatly changed."