For some time now I had seen nothing of the Lethbridges. I had had two letters from Hugh, who told me he was well. He also sent me a photograph of himself, taken in his lieutenant's uniform. His letter, I remember, was a cheery epistle, intermingled with a tone of sadness. He asked me to visit his wife, and to try to cheer her; but there was no word either of his father or of his sister. Perhaps the thought of Hugh's letter made me think of the latter, for, as I found my way along the footpath, I reflected on our meetings.
Why was it that my mind was constantly reverting to her? I had, in a way, become almost sullenly resigned to the fact that, if Dr. Rhomboid were right, I had only three or four months longer to live, and yet, in a way for which I could not account, I constantly found myself thinking of Isabella Lethbridge. I told myself again and again that I did not love her, and I was sure I was right. Indeed, after my experiences with the Vicar and with Mrs. Rosewarn, I felt angry with her, angry with myself for constantly thinking about her; and while this feeling possessed me, I met her. She had come by a pathway from her home, and the two paths met just as we came in sight of each other. A kind of madness possessed me as I shook hands with her.
"Have you heard from Hugh lately?" I asked, after our first greetings.
"No," she replied. "My father has forbidden both my mother and me to receive any letters from him."
"Surely that is a foolish command on his part," I said. "He cannot stop Hugh from writing, neither can he forbid the postman from bringing letters to your house."
"No," she said, with a laugh, "but my father has the key to the letter bag, and he can decide as to what letters reach us." She spoke, as I thought, flippantly, and as one who did not care.
Perhaps it was the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes which caused me to say what I did.
"Have I to congratulate you, Miss Lethbridge?"
She laughed as though I had perpetrated a joke.
"What made you think of such a thing?" she asked.
"The look in his eyes when I saw him at your house, and your evident liking for each other."
I felt how incongruous my words were, how utterly out of keeping with the scenes of sorrow I had witnessed that day; but, as I said, a spirit of madness was upon me.