"I think you will soon be out if you go on improving at this rate," answered Oswald, ignoring the last portion of Frank's words. "You look better this evening than you have looked yet."
"Oh, I am all right. But of course I look better, now Jane's here. Nearly the first thing she did was to part and brush my hair, and make me put on a clean collar. Only fancy her coming upon me today without warning! When the girl came up to say there was a lady at the door in a cab for Mr. Allister, I thought of anybody rather than Jane."
Oswald Cray wished them goodnight, and walked leisurely home. He really had some work to do, but he could have remained longer with them, only that he thought they might prefer to be alone on this the first evening of the sister's arrival. They had been apart for so many years.
Oswald let himself in with his latch-key. It must be supposed that Mrs. Benn heard him; for she came running up the kitchen stairs, and held put something to him under the light of the hall lamp. It appeared to be a piece of narrow black ribbon, about a third of a yard in length.
"When I had got the tea-tray down in the kitchen, sir, I found this a-hanging to it. I suppose the young lady that was with you upstairs left it here."
There was little doubt that Jane had left it. A wrist-ribbon probably, inadvertently untied in pulling off her glove. Oswald looked at the woman--at her crusty face, where the pert curiosity induced by the visit was not yet subdued. A curiosity he judged it well to satisfy.
"Did you know who that lady was, Mrs. Benn?"
"No, sir."
"It was poor Mr. Allister's sister. She has come all the way from Scotland to nurse him." The crustiness disappeared; the face lighted up with a better feeling. Mr. Allister had been a favourite of Mrs. Benn's, and if she could be sorry for anybody's illness, she was sorry for his.
"Mr. Allister's sister! If I had but known it, sir! What a pleasant-speaking young lady she is." Following his wife up the kitchen stairs, had come Benn. He waited until this colloquy was over, and then began to speak on his own account.