'Will he understand that, Ursula?'
'Surely, dear; the end is plain enough: you belong to Max now.'
'I like to know that,' she returned simply. 'Oh, the rest of feeling that he will take care of me now! it is too good to talk about. But I hope I am sufficiently thankful.' And Gladys's lovely eyes were full of solemn feeling as she spoke.
I thought she wanted to be quiet,—it was difficult for her to realise her happiness at once,—so I told her that I had some letters to write, and carried my desk into the next room, but she followed me after a time, and we had a long talk about Max.
When Mr. Hamilton came up in the evening he noticed the improvement in Gladys's appearance.
'You are better to-night, my dear.'
'Oh yes, so much better,' looking up in his face with a smile. 'Giles, do you think it would hurt me to have a drive to-morrow? I am so tired of these two rooms. A drive alone with Ursula would be delicious. We could go down the Redstone lanes towards Pemberley: one always has a whiff of sea-air there over the downs.'
Gladys's request surprised me quite as much as it did Mr. Hamilton. She had proposed it in all innocence; no idea of encountering Max entered her head for a moment; Gladys's simplicity would be incapable of laying plans of this sort. Her new-born happiness made her anxious to lay aside her invalid habits; she wanted to be strong, to resume daily life, to breathe the fresh outer air.
As for Mr. Hamilton, he did not try to conceal his pleasure.
'I see we shall soon lose our patient, nurse,' he said, with one of his old droll looks. 'She is anxious to make herself independent of us.—Oh, you shall go, by all means. I will go round to the stable and tell Atkinson myself. It is an excellent idea, Gladys.'