'You are going away,' I said, rather lugubriously, for I felt all at once how I should miss her. She looked a little better and brighter, I thought, or was it only temporary excitement?
'Yes,' she returned seriously, but not sadly, 'I think it will be better. I am almost glad to go away, except that I shall not see you,' looking at me affectionately.
'Oh, if you wish to go,' for I was so relieved to hear her say this.
'It is not that I wish it, exactly, but that I feel it will be better: things are so uncomfortable just now, more than usual, I think. Etta seems always worrying herself and me; sometimes I fancy that she wants to get rid of me, that I am too troublesome,' with a faint smile. 'She worries about my health and want of spirits. I suppose I am rather a depressing element in the house, and, as I get rather tired of all this fuss, I think it will be better to leave it behind for a little.'
'That sounds as though you were driven away from home, Miss Hamilton.'
'Miss Hamilton!' reproachfully; 'that is naughty, Ursula. I do not call you Miss Garston.'
'Gladys, then.'
'Perhaps my restlessness is driving me away,' she returned sadly. 'I do feel so restless without my work. I never minded Etta's fussiness so much. I daresay she means it kindly, but it harasses me. I am one of those reserved people who do not find it easy to talk of their feelings, bodily or mental, except to a chosen few. You are one,—perhaps not the only one.'
'Of course not,' for she hesitated. 'You do not suppose that I laid such flattering unction to my soul?'
'Oh, but I could tell you anything,' she returned seriously. 'You seem to draw out one's thoughts while one is thinking them. Yes, I am sorry to leave you even for a few weeks; but, for many reasons, Giles is right, and the change will be good for me.'