"She was tired, and she has gone to lie down for half an hour."
"Then you and I can have a little talk together."
Olive guessed instinctively what was coming. "If what you were about to say to me is not very important, I would leave it unsaid to-day, if I were you," she answered. "You have done more talking already than is good for you."
As if to verify her words, he was suddenly taken with a severe fit of sickness which lasted several minutes and left him thoroughly exhausted.
Laying his wasted fingers on Olive's arm, and drawing her towards him, "What I was about to say was this," he whispered. "Since I have been lying here, I have had time to think of many things. But the thing that has weighed heaviest on my mind, the thing that I have regretted most, is my treatment of Eleanor Lloyd. It was you, Olive, who persuaded me to hide the truth from her, to let her live on in ignorance of her real history; to--to--you understand what I mean."
"You know what my motives in the matter were, Matthew," said Olive, in a low voice.
"Yes, I know quite well what they were, and very mean and despicable they seem to me now. Mind, I am not going to reproach you. The fault was mine in allowing myself to be persuaded by you. In any case, the past is the past, and nothing can alter it; but, so sure as I now lie here, the very first day that I can crawl downstairs, I will send for Miss Lloyd, tell her everything, and ask her forgiveness for the wrong I have done her!"
He said no more, but shut his eyes and seemed as if he were going to sleep.
Olive at this time had got Gerald Warburton's letter upstairs, and had, in fact, already answered it in the way that we have seen. For a moment she was tempted to show the letter to her cousin, but before she could make up her mind to do so, Kelvin was asleep or seemed to be. So telling herself that she did not care to disturb him, she let the opportunity go by, and as Kelvin, when he awoke, did not again recur to the subject, there seemed to be no reason why she should do so. Not much longer could the climax be delayed, not much longer could Eleanor Lloyd be kept in ignorance; of that Olive was quite aware; but she would, if possible, delay the revelation for a little while; delay it till Mr. Kelvin should have thoroughly recovered from his illness, and having got rid of all his foolish sick-bed fancies, should be prepared to carry out the scheme in all its features as originally proposed by her and agreed to by him.
But when would Mr. Kelvin have recovered from his illness? That was a question which, as yet, Olive was not prepared to answer. Sometimes it seemed to her that her plot was slowly working itself round to the fulfilment for which she so ardently longed; sometimes it seemed as if no such fulfilment were possible to her. That her cousin liked to have her by his side, liked to have her wait upon him, she saw clearly enough, and she fancied that with each day she became more indispensable to him. But was his heart touched by her devotion; was he slowly but surely learning to love her? That was a problem which at present she could in nowise solve. Time and patience might work wonders for her, and with them as her allies she saw no reason, when in her more sanguine moods, to despair of ultimate success. Having gone so far, having ventured so much, it was not likely, as she said to herself, that she should go back, that she should let herself be overcome by any childish timidity or nonsensical scruples, when, for aught she knew to the contrary, she might at that very moment be on the brink of success. She never knew what a day, what an hour, might bring forth. At some moment when least expected her cousin might put forth his hand and say to her, "Olive, my heart has come round to you again. I love you. Be my wife." If such a prize were not to be won without risk, she was prepared to run that risk, whatever it might involve.