But her son looked at her steadily.
"Mother, is Anderson gone?"
"No," said Mrs. Gaddesden, with hesitation. "But he doesn't want you to talk any more to-night--he begs you not. Please--Philip!"
"Ask him to come here!" said Philip, peremptorily. "I want to talk to him and Elizabeth."
Mrs. Gaddesden protested in vain. The mother and daughter looked at each other with flushed faces, holding a kind of mute dialogue. Then Elizabeth rose from her seat by the fire.
"I will call Mr. Anderson, Philip. But if we convince you that what you ask is quite impossible, will you promise to go quietly to bed and try to sleep? It breaks mother's heart, you know, to see you straining yourself like this."
Philip nodded--a crimson spot in each cheek, his frail hands twining and untwining as he tried to compose himself.
Elizabeth went half-way down the stairs and called. Anderson hurried out of the drawing-room, and saw her bending to him from the shadows, very white and calm.
"Will you come back to Philip a moment?" she said, gently. "Philip has told me what he proposed to you."
Anderson could not find a word to say. In a blind tumult of feeling he caught her hand, and pressed his lips to it, as though appealing to her dumbly to understand him.