“Hallo, Jumbo,” called out Fay. “Come over here and give me a kiss.”
His stupid, handsome face brightened, and some of the scared look disappeared from the eyes.
“Cheer oh, Fay, old girl!” he said huskily. “I’m glad you’re better.”
Claudia and the nurse left the strange married couple together.
At that same moment Colin was tearing open a telegram which his man said had arrived a couple of hours previously. It was from Pat at Le Touquet, and Colin quickly mastered the disquieting contents.
“Come back quickly and bring Neeburg if possible. Gilbert has had a seizure. Would play eighteen holes. Tried to stop him. Don’t alarm Claudia. No immediate danger.”
CHAPTER XXII
A SICK MAN’S FANCY
From the day that Gilbert was brought back to England, some weeks later, Claudia’s life became one of deadly rustic monotony. Neeburg had not been surprised at the seizure. Cardiac trouble not infrequently followed on neglected influenza, he said, and combined with his nervous breakdown was, though not actually dangerous to his life, serious enough to make, for a time, a complete invalid of him. He was kept lying in his bed until he was well enough to be moved from Le Touquet, and then, in answer to his mother’s entreaties—she still seemed vaguely to hold Claudia responsible—he went down to his old home at Wynnstay.