"Why, isn't Mrs. Bowen well?" asked Colville, with trepidation.
"No; she's miserable. Haven't you noticed?"
"She sees me so seldom now. I thought it was only her headaches——"
"It's much more than that. She seems to be failing every way. The doctor has told her she ought to get away from Florence." Colville could not speak; Imogene went on. "She's always delicate, you know. And I feel that all that's keeping her here now is the news from home that I—we're waiting for."
Colville got up. "This is ghastly! She mustn't do it!"
"How can you help her doing it? If she thinks anything is right, she can't help doing it. Who could?"
Colville thought to himself that he could have said; but he was silent. At the moment he was not equal to so much joke or so much truth; and Imogene went on—
"She'd be all the more strenuous about it if it were disagreeable, and rather than accept any relief from me she would die."
"Is she—unkind to you?" faltered Colville.
"She is only too kind. You can feel that she's determined to be so—that she's said she will have nothing to reproach herself with, and she won't. You don't suppose Mrs. Bowen would be unkind to any one she disliked?"