She compressed her lips, and looked down the line again.
"That is my train, I think," she said presently.
When I had put her into a carriage, she shook hands with me, thanking me gravely, then threw herself back in her seat, and was borne away.
That was literally all that passed between us, yet she left me standing there, staring after her stupidly, and curiously impressed. There was always a suggestion of something unusual about her which piqued my interest and kept it alive.
During the summer and autumn I met her at various places, and saw her also in her own house, and she seemed, so far as an outsider could judge, as happily situated as most women of her station, and not at all likely to require any special service at the hands of a friend. Her husband was a good deal older than herself, but the disparity made no apparent difference to their comfort. When he was absent she never talked about him, but when he was present she treated him with unvarying consideration, and they appeared together everywhere. Mindful of my promise to Lady Adeline, I showed them both every attention in my power. I called regularly, and Colonel Colquhoun as regularly returned my calls, sometimes bringing Evadne with him.
The winter that year came upon us suddenly and sharply, and until it set in I had only seen her under the most ordinary circumstances; but at the beginning of the cold weather, she had an illness which was the means of my learning to know more of her true character and surroundings in a few days than I should probably have done in years of mere social intercourse. I stopped for a moment one morning as I drove past As-You-Like-It to leave her some flowers, and her own maid, who opened the door, showed me upstairs to a small sitting room, the ante-chamber to another room beyond, at the door of which she knocked.
I heard no answer, but the girl entered and announced me. I followed her in, and found myself face to face with Evadne. She was in bed. The maid withdrew, closing the door after her.
"What nonsense is this—I am exceedingly sorry, doctor!" Evadne exclaimed feebly. "That stupid girl must have thought that you were coming to see me professionally. But, oh! do let me look at the flowers!" and she stretched out her left hand for them, offering me her right at the same time to shake, and burying her face and her embarrassment together. Her hand was hot and dry.
"I don't require you in the least, doctor," she assured me, looking up brightly from the flowers, "but I am very glad to see you."
"Why are you in bed?" I asked, responding cheerfully to this cheerful greeting.