She had never been in it. Her visits to Miss Bettina's, during the prosperity in Grosvenor Place, were not sufficiently familiar to allow of her entering the bedrooms. Sara told her she had never yet been in it.
"I seem to know it all; I seem to have seen it before. I suppose it's a sign that I shall die in it."
She spoke dreamily, alluding to a foolish superstition that she had heard in her childhood, and probably had never thought of since. It was not a very promising beginning.
Miss Davenal wrote a line to Mr. Welch, the surgeon, and he called in the evening. Caroline was better then, calm and cheerful. Her spirits had revived in a wonderful manner; but it was in her nature to be subject to these sudden fluctuations.
"Shall I get well?" she asked, when his examination was over.
"I will do what I can for you. The pain I think can be very considerably alleviated."
It was not a satisfactory answer. To most ears it might have savoured of considerate evasion, but it did not to Caroline's. "Must there be an operation?" she resumed.
"No."
She looked up at him from the depths of her violet eyes, pausing before she spoke again. "Monsieur Le Bleu said there must be an operation, if it could be performed. If, he said; he did not seem sure. It was the only chance, he said."
The surgeon met the remark jokingly. "Monsieur Le Bleu's very clever--as he no doubt thinks. I will see you again tomorrow, Mrs. Cray."