"I have come for you," he said. "Louis wants to see you. I have been charged to bring you back with me, if possible. I wish I could save you from this ordeal. Do you shrink from it very much?"
"No," she said with quiet gravity. "Only as one shrinks from seeing errors that one is powerless to help. Why am I wanted, Mr. Chessney? What can I do!"
"I do not know. Louis wants you. He wishes to see you and his mother and his sister Alice together, and I shall have to add that he wants me to be present. I tried to spare you all this last, but he grew excited over it."
"I would quite as soon have you present," Claire said, with gentle wonder. She did not understand why it was supposed to be a time of special trial to her individually. If she could have heard Mrs. Ansted's voice in confidential talk with Mr. Chessney, she would have been enlightened.
"The girl is well enough, Mr. Chessney, and she has been of help to some of the lower classes here during the winter. I have nothing against her; on the contrary, I would like to shield her. The simple fact is that she has become too deeply interested in my son. It is not strange, I am sure, but it is sad; and that is why I do not wish Alice to have her here at this time. As a mother, it is my duty to shield the girl, though I must say she showed very little consideration for a mother's feelings when she talked with me." All this, and much more, which Mr. Chessney weighed, putting his nephew's views beside them, and came to the conclusion that there was an attachment between the two young people which had not been smiled upon by their elders.
Although Claire knew nothing of this, her appearance in the sick-room was attended with sufficient embarrassment. Mrs. Ansted received her with a sort of grave tolerance, as one who was humoring the whim of a sick man, and doing violence to her own sense of propriety thereby. But the change in Louis Ansted was so great, that, after the first moment, it held Claire's thoughts, to the exclusion of all trivial things.
He held toward her a thin and trembling hand, as he said:
"It was good in you to come. I have changed a great deal since that night you refused to ride with me, haven't I? Yes, I have changed since then. Has Harold told you that I have found help at last?"