Meeting Kate’s anxious gaze in the looking-glass, Sarah favoured her with a small smile of reassurance, and said, as she adjusted a ringlet: “That’s more the thing! The way you were doing it, my girl, it looked like a birch-broom in a fit!”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Ellen, giggling. “She does look a picture! If you please, will I take you to her ladyship’s room now?”

“No, Miss Kate will show me where it is,” Sarah replied, gently pushing Kate towards the door. “You can stay here, and make everything tidy. And mind you give that poplin dress a good shake before you hang it up! I’ll put Miss Kate to bed, so you needn’t wait up for her!”

“Sarah, you will take care, won’t you?” Kate said urgently, as soon as the door was shut behind them. “I am sick with apprehension! Sidlaw must have told her—” She broke off, and lowered her voice. “Here she is! Don’t tell her anything, Sarah! Don’t trust her!”

“Anyone would think your senses was disordered, Miss Kate!” replied Mrs Nidd. “For goodness sake, stop behaving like a wet-goose, and be off to your dinner!”

Kate threw her a speaking glance, but spoke with commendable calm to Sidlaw, who had by this time reached them, and come to a halt, standing with her hands primly clasped before her, and looking Sarah over with sour disparagement. “Sidlaw, this is my nurse, Mrs Nidd,” said Kate. “Will you have the goodness to conduct her to her ladyship’s room?”

“I was coming to do so, miss,” Sidlaw replied, dropping a stiff curtsy. “I’m sure, Mrs Nidd, if Miss had seen fit to tell me she was expecting a visit from you, I should have seen to it myself that a bedchamber was prepared for you.”

“Well, it would have puzzled her to do that, seeing that she didn’t know I was coming to visit her,” said Mrs Nidd cheerfully. “Not that I would have come, if I’d known her ladyship was poorly, but what’s done can’t be mended, and you won’t find me any trouble! Now, you run along, Miss Kate! I shall be coming to put you to bed later on, so I won’t say goodnight to you.”

There was nothing for Kate to do but to make her way to the Long Drawing-room, which she did, feeling that Sidlaw at least had met her match in Mrs Nidd.

She had hoped to have found Mr Philip Broome waiting for her there, but the room was empty, a circumstance which, in the exacerbated state of her nerves, she was much inclined to think betrayed a lamentable unconcern with what he must surely have known was her anxiety to exchange a few words with him in private. She fidgeted about the room for what seemed to her an interminable time, and was just wondering whether the pre-prandial gathering was taking place in one of the saloons on the entrance floor when she heard his voice in the anteroom. A moment later, he came in, escorting Sir Timothy. At sight of him, her annoyance evaporated; and when his eyes smiled at her across the room her heart melted. She moved forward to greet Sir Timothy, and was adjusting a cushion behind his back when Pennymore came in, carrying a massive silver tray which bore two decanters and five sherry glasses. He set this down on a table by one of the windows, and disclosed fell tidings. Her ladyship had sent a message to him that she was coming down to dinner.

None of the three persons present evinced any very noticeable sign of delight. Kate, in fact, looked aghast; Philip, inscrutable; and Sir Timothy merely said, in his gentle way: “Ah, I am glad she is so much better! Thank you, Pennymore: you needn’t wait.”

Kate seated herself beside him, and inquired whether he had enjoyed his drive that afternoon. His face lit up, and his eyes travelled fondly to his nephew. “Very much indeed,” he answered. “It is a long time since I’ve driven round my lands. A barouche, you know, doesn’t enable one to see over the hedges, which makes traveling in one very dull work. But Philip took me in the tilbury—and was obliged to own that I haven’t quite lost my old driving-skill! Eh, Philip?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know about owning it!” replied Philip. “I never supposed that you had!”

“Then the next time you invite me to drive out with you, let it be in your curricle! I’m told you have a sweet-stepping pair of bays, and I should like to try their paces!”

“Willingly, sir. Do you mean to take the shine out of me?”

“Ah, who knows? I could have done so in my day, but I fear that’s long past. As one grows older, one begins to lose the precision of eye which all first-rate fiddlers have.” He turned to Kate, saying fondly: “And how have you passed the day, my pretty? Pleasantly, I trust? I hear your old nurse has come to visit you: that must have been an agreeable surprise, I daresay. I shall hope to make her acquaintance. Does she mean to make a long stay?”

“No, sir: she is married, you know, and cannot do so,” Kate said. She hesitated, and then said, raising her eyes to his: “She is going to take me back to London—tomorrow, I hope.”

It cost her a pang to see the cheerfulness fade from his face. He seemed to age under her eyes, but, after a moment, he smiled, though mournfully, and said: “I see. I shan’t seek to dissuade you, my dear, but I shall miss you more than I can say.”

She put out her hand, in one of her impulsive gestures, and laid it over one of his thin, fragile ones, clasping it warmly, and saying in an unsteady voice: “And I shall miss you, sir—much more than I can say! If I don’t see you again—thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kindness to me! I shall never forget it—or that you bestowed your blessing on me.”

Philip’s voice cut in on this, sharpened by surprise. “What’s this, Kate? Tomorrow?”

He had walked over to the window, and was standing with one of the decanters in his hand. She turned her head, encountered his searching look, but said only: “If it might be contrived! I think—I think it would be best. Sarah can escort me, you see, so I need not be a charge on you!”

“A charge on me? Moonshine! You may rest assured I shall go with you!”

He would have said more, but was interrupted by the entrance of Dr Delabole, who came in, exuding an odd mixture of goodfellowship and dismay, and shook a finger at Sir Timothy, saying: “Now, you deserve that I should give you a scold, sir, for driving out with Mr Philip without a word to me! In the tilbury, too! Most imprudent of you—but I can see that you are none the worse for it, so I won’t scold you!”

“On the contrary, I am very much better for it,” replied Sir Timothy, with his faint, aloof smile. “Thank you, Philip, yes! A glass of sherry!”

“Nevertheless,” said the doctor, “you must allow me to count your pulse, Sir Timothy! That I must insist on! Just to reassure myself!”

It seemed for a moment as though Sir Timothy was on the point of repulsing him, but as Kate rose to make way for Delabole, he said, in a bored voice: “Certainly—if it affords you amusement!”

Kate, as Delabole bent over Sir Timothy, seized the opportunity to cross the room to Philip’s side, and to whisper: “I must speak to you! But how? Where? Can you arrange for me to leave tomorrow?”

“Yes, I’ll drive to Market Harborough, and hire a chaise in the morning. It can hardly be here before noon, however, which means you must spend a night somewhere along the road—Woburn, probably. What has happened? Have you seen Minerva?”

She nodded, unable to repress a shudder. “Yes. I can’t tell you now!”

“Did you tell her?”

“Not yet. I could not, Philip! Oh, when can I speak to you alone?”

“Come down early to breakfast, and walk out to take the air; I shall be on the terrace. Minerva will see to it that we get no opportunity to be private this evening—did you know that she is joining us?” He glanced over his shoulder, towards the archway which led to the anteroom, and said, under his breath: “Take care! Here she is! Carry this to my uncle!” As she took the glass from him, he added, in quite another voice: “Sherry for you, Doctor? Cousin Kate, I am going to pour you out a glass of Madeira!—Good evening, Minerva! I am happy to see you restored to health! What may I offer you? Sherry, or Madeira?”

“A little Madeira, thank you, Philip. Sir Timothy!”

He rose, and came forward to meet her, punctiliously kissing first her outstretched hand, and then her cheek. “Welcome, my dear!” he said. “I hope you are feeling more the thing? You have been in a very poor way, have you not? Such a fright as you gave us all! Pray don’t do it again!”

“You may be sure I shall try not to do so!” she returned, moving to a chair, and sinking down upon it.

“I wonder if a doctor ever had two such obstreperous patients!” said Delabole, solicitously placing a stool before her. “First there is Sir Timothy, playing truant when my back was turned, and now it is you, my lady, leaving your bedchamber in defiance of my orders! I don’t know what is to be done with you, upon my word, I don’t! And you did not even summon me to lend you the support of my arm! Now, how am I to take that?”

Lady Broome, receiving a glass of Madeira from Kate, and bestowing a smile upon her, replied: “Not amiss, I trust. Mrs Nidd most kindly lent me the support of her arm—my nieces’s nurse, you know, who has come to visit her: a most respectable woman! Kate, dear child, I do hope my people have made her comfortable?”

“Perfectly comfortable, ma’am, thank you,” Kate said, in a colourless tone.

“Ah, good! I told her Thorne would look after her. What a fortunate thing it was that she arrived in time to bring Torquil up to the house in her chaise! She has a great deal of common-sense, and I am vastly indebted to her, as, you may be sure, I told her.”