"But Margaret, darling. I will not hear a single word. I shall choose my own time and arrive in my own way--but go I will."
She laughed Margaret's scruples to scorn and turned the subject.
Grace was so gay and bright, so overflowing with good-humour, that all the inmates of Renton Place were taken by surprise, save and except Jean, who answered Mrs. Dorriman's expression of satisfaction by one short sentence,
And Mrs. Dorriman felt angry, and accused her faithful old servant of prejudice and superstition, to which Jean made not the slightest reply.
Margaret was a little uneasy; her experience of Grace's wilfulness made her dread some step that would bring happiness to neither of them. But she heard no more of her projected visit, and by degrees she began to hope that it had merely been a wild way of talking.
One great change was brought about by her sister's delicacy. Mr. Sandford, talking to the doctor one day about himself--Grace refused to see any doctor there--alluded to the eldest Miss Rivers as being delicate.
"We can never get her to go out; she says it tires her; she was always indolent."
"Or delicate," said the doctor; "she should not tire herself; you should send her out driving."
"No reason there should not be," said the doctor, pleasantly.
The new idea rather took possession of Mr. Sandford, and before many days were over Grace was told that she was to go out, and that a carriage was at her service.
Mr. Sandford's gruff way of announcing this fact did not prevent her seeing the real kindness, and she thanked him, while tears glistened in her eyes and she had a jest on her lips.
Margaret saw her revive under the influence of the fresh air. She had more than once postponed her journey, greatly against her own wishes, and yielding only to Grace's urgent prayers. At length she left Renton, with a heavy heart for her sister. She had too great an affection for her not to see that the excitement and gay manner were all, in reality, part of her illness; she dreaded the worst; each time she tried to talk to her seriously Grace either laughed her to scorn or cried till she made herself ill, and no good was done.
As she went south she tried to face the duties that awaited her--to remember only that her husband was her husband.