“In a little while, perhaps, but not just yet. I’m glad you are alone, Amy; I want to talk to you. How is Jerry to-day?”
“Much the same. I want to talk to you too—about Jerry—about what Dr Lewis has been saying,” Mrs Waldron began.
Her husband looked up sharply, and then she noticed that he was very pale, and as she mentioned the doctor’s name he started.
“Not anything worse? You are not trying to break anything dreadful to me, Amy,” he said hoarsely. “What a mockery it would all seem if it had come too late!” he added, as if speaking to himself, in a lower voice, though not so low as not to be heard by his wife. But she did not stop to ask the meaning of his words—she was too eager to set his anxiety at rest.
“Oh, no, no,” she said; “there is nothing new. It is only that Dr Lewis does so very earnestly advise—”
“His going abroad for some months,” interrupted Mr Waldron, his face clearing. “Yes, I know that. You spoke of it a little the other day; but I did not know till to-day that he urged it so very strongly.”
“Till to-day,” repeated Mrs Waldron, bewildered; “how did you hear it to-day? Has Dr Lewis been to see you?”
“No,” said her husband, with a rather peculiar smile, “it was not from him I heard it. Why did you not tell me how much he had said about it, Amy?”
“I have been going to do so all these last days,” she said; “but I waited to think over any feasible plan before saying more to you. I knew you were busy and worried. And even now I have but little to propose,” and she went on to tell of her letter to Mrs Knox, and her hopes of some advice or help in that quarter. Mr Waldron listened and again he smiled.
“I think I have a better plan than that to talk about,” he said. “You will scarcely believe me, Amy, when I tell you that I have this afternoon a letter from Lady Mildred Osbert offering to take charge of Jerry at Cannes for some weeks, or months—in fact for as long as it would be well for him to stay there.”