"But you're doubtful? You think I shall go back on you again?"
"You won't mean to do that, but so many things happen, don't they? I think I'm getting superstitious."
"Nothing is going to happen this time," said Joan, in a voice which she tried vainly to make firm. "I'm not the weak sort of thing that you seem to think me, and in August I go to London!"
Elizabeth took her hand and held it. "I could weep over you!" she said.
2
The days were slipping by. It was now June and Mrs. Ogden still persisted in her refusal to leave Seabourne. On this point Joan found herself up against an opposition stronger than any she had had to meet before. Gently but firmly, her mother stuck to her decision.
"You go, my dear," she said constantly now. "You go, and God bless you and take care of you, my Joan." She seemed to be all gentleness and resignation. "After all, I'm not as young as I was, and I'm dull and tiresome, I know."
She had grown thinner in the past few weeks, and her stoop was more pronounced. Joan knew that she must be sleeping badly, for she could hear her moving about her room well into the small hours. Her appetite, always poor, appeared to fail completely.
"Oh! Mother, do try to eat something. Are you ill?"
"No, no, my dear, of course not, but I don't feel very hungry."