"Humph? Misfort'nate? Yes, I've heard it called that before. Stubbs ain't the first by a long chalk whose sticks I've had to make a list of because of his dying--or living--misfort'nate. Who's the missus?"
"Can't say. There she goes!"--suddenly; and with one accord both stepped to the large French window which stood open, and stared across the lawn. "Just a mere slip of a thing," murmured Joe Mills, under his breath, "'bout my Milly's age, poor lass!"
"Lucky there's no kids," quoth his companion, bluntly; "and, 'Poor lass' or no, we've got our work to do. Where had we got to now? Look sharp, and let's clear out of this before she comes back,"--and spurred to activity by the suggestion, the interlude came to an end forthwith.
They need not have hurried; Leonore was not going to interrupt again. She had come to take a last look round, as she was not now dwelling there; but the sight just witnessed was enough to preclude any desire for further investigation, and she almost ran across the threshold which she was never more to enter.
It may be wondered at that none of her own people were with the hapless girl at such a moment--but a few words will explain this. A very few days before Godfrey Stubbs' sudden death, an outbreak of influenza, which was rife in the neighbourhood, had taken place at Boldero Abbey; and to the intense vexation of the general, he found himself laid by the heels, when it was above all things necessary and desirable that he should appear, clad in the full panoply of woe, at the funeral of his son-in-law.
He would go, he was sure he could go,--and he rose from his bed and tried, only to totter, trembling, back into it again.
Then he ordered up Sue, and sent messages to the younger ones. When it appeared that all were either sick or sickening, and that the doctor's orders were peremptory, he was made so much worse himself by wrathful impotence, that thereafter all was easy, and by the time the epidemic had abated, Leonore was no longer in her own house.
She was still, however, to her father's view a personage, and as such to be treated. Messages of affectionate condolence and sympathetic inquiry were despatched daily. Though he did not actually write with his own hand, he composed and dictated, and every epistle had to be submitted to him before it was sent--while each and all conveyed the emphatic declaration that, the very moment he was fit to travel, General Boldero would fly to his dear girl's side, to give her the benefit of his counsel and experience.