"I hear you are leaving. Will you come up for a minute, that I may wish you well?"
"What is it?" asked Mary Anne.
"Lady Ellis wishes to say farewell to me," he answered. "I will go to her now."
The maid led the way, and showed him up to the small sitting-room. Lady Ellis was leaning back in her easy-chair, but she sat upright when he entered. Even more than before was he struck with the white, hollow, skeleton look of the face, on which death had so unmistakably set his seal; but the disorder had arrived at that stage now when each day made a perceptible change. The black eyes, once glistening so fiercely with their vain passions, lighted up with a faint pleasure.
"I am glad you came up: so glad! I thought you did not intend to see me at all."
He answered that he did not know she was well enough to be seen, speaking cordially. With that dying face and form before him, three-parts of his cherished enmity to the woman died out. Not his dislike of her.
"I would bid you farewell, Mr. Hunter. I would wish you--an' you will permit me--God-speed. The next time we meet, both of us will have entered on a different world from this."
"Thank you," he said, in allusion to the wish, "but are you sure nothing can be done for your recovery?"
"Nothing whatever. And the end cannot be very far off now. Mr. Thornycroft is going back with me to Cheltenham, and I am glad of it. I should like him to see the last of me."
She was looking at the fire as she spoke. He, standing at the opposite side of the mantelpiece, looked at her. What a change from the vain, worldly, selfish woman of the past! Raising her eyes suddenly, she caught his gaze, perhaps divined somewhat of his thoughts.