"I want to go to Amberley as soon as I can be moved. I want to see it again with you."
"In December?" asked Marian, with lifted, disapproving brows. "It would be horribly damp, my dear Julian, all water-meadows and mist. You would be much more comfortable here."
Julian frowned. He hated the word "comfort" in connection with himself.
"You don't understand," he said, a little impatiently. "I know every inch of it, and it's quite jolly in the winter. We are above the water. I want to see the downs. One gets tired of milk-carts and barrel organs, and the brown tank on the roof across the way. You remember the downs, Marian?"
His eyes met hers again with that new, curiously weak look of his. Marian turned her head away. How could Julian bear to speak of the downs?
She saw for a moment the old Julian springing up the hillside assured and eager, the fine, strong lover who had taken her heart by storm. She spoke coldly to this weaker Julian.
"Yes," she said, "I am not likely to forget the downs. I spent the last happy hours of my life there; but I cannot say I ever wish to see them again."
Julian's eyes fell, so that she could not see if he had even noticed how bitterly she remembered Amberley.
The next day she found him sitting up for the first time. He was propped up by cushions, but it made him look as if he had gained some of his old incisive strength.
The other two men had been moved, and they had the large, bare room to themselves.