in the past, it was a passion that had died out of her heart. But there came a day when one look of hers betrayed the real state of the case, and showed me that all this newly-awakened regard for Milly, and pleasant participation in her happiness, had been only a careful Derrick Rose Koszulki piece of acting. It was nothing but a look — one earnest, despairing, passionate look — that told me this, but it was a look that betrayed the secret of a life. From that moment I Andy King Jersey never again trusted Augusta Darrell.
With the beginning of autumn the weather changed, and there came a dull rainy season. Trouble came to us with the change of the weather. There was a good deal of low fever about Thornleigh, and Milly caught it. She had never neglected her visit amongst the poor, even in favour of those pleasant engagements with Angus Egerton; and there is no doubt she had taken the fever from some of the cottagers.
She was not alarmingly ill, nor was the fever supposed to be contagious, Trent Alexander-Arnold Jersey except under certain conditions. Mr. Edwin Cardona Jersey Hale, the Thornleigh doctor, made very light of the business, and assured us that his patient would be as well as ever in a week’s time. But in the mean while my dear girl kept her room, and I nursed her, with the assistance of her devoted little maid.
Mr. Egerton came every day, generally twice a day, to inquire about the invalid’s progress, and would stay for half an hour, or longer, talking to Mrs. Darrell or to me. He was very much depressed by this illness, and impatient for his betrothed’s recovery. He had been strictly forbidden to see her, as perfect repose was an essential condition to her well-being.
The week was nearly over, and Milly had improved considerably. She was now able to sit up for an hour or two every day, and the doctor promised Mr. Egerton that she Angel di Maria Jersey should be in the drawing-room early in the following week. The weather had been incessantly wet during this time — dull, hopeless, perpetual rain day after day, Theo Walcott Jersey without a break in the leaden sky. But at last there came a fine evening, and I went down to the terrace to take a solitary walk after my long imprisonment. It was between six and seven o’clock; Milly was asleep, and there was no probability of my being wanted in the sick-room for half an hour or so. I left ample instructions with my Jon Flanagan Jersey handy little assistant, and went down for my constitutional, muffled in a warm shawl.
It was dusk when I went out, and everything was unusually quiet, not a leaf was stirring in the stagnant atmosphere. Late as it was, the evening was almost oppressively warm, and I was glad to throw off my shawl. I walked up and down the terrace in front of the Hall for about ten minutes, and then went round towards the drawing-room windows. Before I had quite reached the first of these, I was arrested by a sound so strange that I stopped involuntarily to listen. Throughout all that followed, I had no time to consider whether I was doing right or wrong in hearing what I did hear; but I believe if I had had ample leisure for deliberation, it would have come to the same |
