What could Halcyone have thought waiting for him all that day! and now
she, of course, must have heard of his accident and there was no sign or
word.
Or was there--and were those cruel doctors not giving him the message?
The day came--the Wednesday after Arabella had sent her letter to her
mother--when he was strong enough to speak. He waited for the moment
when Miss Clinker always arrived with Mrs. Cricklander's bunch of
flowers and morning greeting--and then, while the nurse went from the
room for a second, he whispered with dry lips:
"Will you do me a kindness?" And Arabella's brown eyes gleamed softly
behind her glasses. "Let Miss Halcyone La Sarthe know how I am--she
would come and meet you any day at Mr. Carlyon's--" then he stopped,
disturbed by the blank look in Miss Clinker's face.
"What is it?" he gasped, and Arabella saw that pale as he had been, with
his poor head all bandaged, he grew still more pale--and she realized
how terribly weak he must be, and how carefully she must calculate what
she could reply.
"I understand that Mr. Carlyon is in London upon a visit, and that the
Misses La Sarthe have gone to the sea--" and then, as his eyes touched
her with their pitiful questioning surprise, she blurted out the truth.
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