"Well enough,"—said Diana. "I will get up and be down presently."
"Will you?" said he. "Now I think you had better not. The best thing you can do will be to lie still here and keep quiet all day. May I prescribe for you?"
"Yes. I will do what you please," said Diana. She never looked at him, and he knew it.
"Then this is what I think you had better do. Get up and take a bath; then put on your dressing-gown and lie down again. You shall have your breakfast up here—and I will let nobody come up to disturb you."
"I'm not hungry. I don't want anything."
"You are a little feverish—but you will be better for taking something. Now you get your bath—and I'll attend to the breakfast."
He kissed her brow gravely, guessing that she would rather he did not, but knowing nevertheless that he might and must; for he was her husband, and however gladly she, and unselfishly he, would have broken the relation between them, it subsisted and could not be broken. And then he went down-stairs.
"Where's Mis' Masters?" demanded Jemima when she brought in the breakfast-tray, standing attention.
"Not coming down."
"Ain't anything ails her, is there?"