"How well you are looking!" he exclaimed, as he shook hands with her.
And it was no hollow compliment. The woman he saw before him now, radiant in beauty, was no more like the distressing shadow he had visited at Ypres, than he himself was like a lamp-post. Mrs. Carleton laughed. Yes, she said, she was quite well now.
Mr. Pym begged he might not interrupt the game, and drew away. Close upon that, the dean and his daughter came in, and then came tea. Ere the surgeon had well swallowed his, he was pacing the terrace outside with Mrs. Darling, no one paying attention to them.
"You see I have obeyed your summons, Mrs. Darling," he began; "have called at Castle Wafer by accident, as you desired. What is the business that you wish to consult me upon?"
Mrs. Darling had caught up her daughter's black lace shawl as she left the room, and put it over her head; just as Charlotte had so recently worn it upon hers. She pulled it tightly round her silk gown as she answered--
"I wish to speak to you about my daughter: I fear she is ill."
"In body, or in mind?"
A moment's struggle with herself ere she should answer. But no; even now, although she had summoned the surgeon, at a great cost and trouble, to her aid, she could not bring her lips to admit a hint of the fatal malady.
"In mind!" she echoed, rather indignantly. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Pym. What should be wrong with Mrs. Carleton's mind?"
"As you please," he said, with indifference. "I can go back tonight if I am not wanted."