"You will forgive me?" she said gently.
"Forgive you for having a headache?--Will it prevent you from
coming to us this evening?"
"I should be grateful if you let me choose another day."
He did not stay very long. At leave-taking, he raised her hand to
his lips, and Irene felt that he did it gracefully. But when she was
alone again, his manner, so slightly yet so noticeably changed,
became the harassing subject of her thought. That the change
resulted from annoyance at the scandal in her family she could not
doubt; such a thing would be hard for Arnold to bear. When were they
to speak of it? Speak they must, if the affair went on to publicity.
And, considering the natural difficulty Arnold would find in
approaching such a subject, ought not she to take some steps of her
own initiative?
By evening, she saw the position in a very serious light. She asked
herself whether it did not behove her to offer to make an end of
their engagement.
"Your aunt has brain fever," said Dr. Derwent, in the library after
dinner. And Irene shuddered with dread.
Early next morning she accompanied her father to Mrs. Hannaford's.
The Doctor went upstairs; Irene waited in the dining-room, where she
was soon joined by Olga. The girl's face was news sufficient; her
mother grew worse--had passed a night of delirium. Two nurses were
in the house, and the medical man called every few hours.
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