“Anne!” he implored. “Don’t go.”
“Don’t say anything more,” she implored. “I have to get through the evening. It’s our—last. So you see it must be quite—It must be quite a happy——”
She stretched out a trembling hand for her cloak, and he wrapped it round her, fastening it for her as though she were a child. Then he took her downstairs, and called a closed fiacre.
In the darkness of the courtyard, by the door, he put his arm round her shoulders, and taking both her hands in one of his, he kissed them.
They were wet with the tears she had tried to brush aside.
XIX
Two or three mornings before the conversation between Dr. Dakin and François Fontenelle, Anne, the peaceful Anne of to-day, received by the same post, three letters which interested her.
She knew the handwriting on the envelopes of each, and hastened first to learn what her brother had to say. Hugh, as she had known for some months, was returning to England.
His farm had prospered, and anxious to launch his sons, boys of sixteen and eighteen, in the professions they had chosen, he had determined to retire, and end his days in the old country.
The letter, an affectionate one, stated that he was already in London where he had taken a furnished house, to give him and his wife time to look round, and decide upon their future home.