But if,
as she feared, he were headstrong in disobeying, then she would
remember that her duty to her family, if done with a firm purpose,
would have lasting results, while his life might probably be an
affair of a few weeks,--or even days.
At about eleven Lady Ushant was with her patient when a message was
brought by Mrs. Hopkins. Mrs. Morton wished to see her grandson and
desired to know whether it would suit him that she should come now.
"Why not?" said the sick man, who was sitting up in his bed. Then
Lady Ushant collected her knitting and was about to depart. "Must
you go because she is coming?" Morton asked. Lady Ushant, shocked
at the necessity of explaining to him the ill feeling that existed,
said that perhaps it would be best. "Why should it be best?" Lady
Ushant shook her head, and smiled, and put her hand upon the
counterpane,--and retired. As she passed the door of her rival's
room she could see the black silk dress moving behind the partly
open door, and as she entered her own she heard Mrs. Morton's steps
upon the corridor. The place was already almost "too hot" for her.
Anything would be better than scenes like this in the house of a
dying man.
"Need my aunt have gone away?" he asked after the first greeting.
"I did not say so."
"She seemed to think that she was not to stay.
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