“No, my dear. I refuse to have you with me,” she said authoritatively to Anne. “What’s the use of dragging you to town when nurse does all I want? If they don’t kill me between them, you shall come up and see me afterwards. I shall want a little change from doctors and nurses then. Just now, you’d only be in the way.”
Anne drove with her to the station, and helped to arrange her comfortably in the invalid carriage.
“Good-bye, my dear,” she said rather faintly, as Anne bent over her. She kissed her, and with one of her rare caresses, gently patted her hand.
“You’re a good girl,” she added. “If I get well, it will only be for the pleasure of seeing you again. You’ve got quite pretty, Anne. I always had a weakness for pretty people. Tell the young man, what’s his name?—René, I’m sorry I didn’t see him.”
“He wanted to come to say good-bye,” murmured Anne, trying to control her voice.
Mrs. Burbage shook her head, and her eyes closed.
“I can’t talk to young people. I’m past it,” she whispered. “Good-bye, my dear. God bless you.”
The train moved slowly out of the station, leaving Anne on the platform, blind with tears.
She tried to remember that the London doctor thought the case by no means hopeless. In vain. She felt desolate and overwhelmed. She was alone—and her other friends were going too.
Resolutely Anne turned her mind from this last thought. She would not tell herself that it was because she dared not face it. They were going next morning; and in the afternoon they came to say good-bye.