The day after the damaged motor had carried away the poor Governor--machine détraquée, clopin-clopant, symbole de cette vie qui jusqu'ici semblait rouler en triomphe et qui, desormais, se trainera si gauchement--the day following Sir G----'s departure, I say, the Major B---- also left. It was the very least he could have done. And after the astounding fact of his betrothal to the pretty little Miss C----, I myself felt his presence antipathetic.... Ah, but a strategist, that officer of Guides, strategist of the first order! A masterly move, that betrothal, to disarm any possible suspicion of his friend and keep the while a footing in his beloved's house! But the little one, she deserved better ... _delicieuse enfant_! With what innocent eyes she looked at me when I told her that, above all things, she must not whisper to my patient a word of her engagement. "Understand well, Miss," said I to her; and was ashamed of myself thus to join with him who was deceiving her. "It is because the least agitation, even a happy one, must be avoided." "Ah, that is why," said she, "you will not let her poor husband go to her?" "That is why," I replied, dissembling, "above all things, above all things, she must not be hurried."
"If she wants me?" had said Harry English to Dr. Châtelard, in that dawn hour of dire omen.
"My dear sir," had answered the other, "immediately, of course!"
Rosamond lay, restored to those that loved her, a pale rose among her white tresses, and Harry English still waited her summons.
"Above all," repeated the genial physician, who had stood by them so stoutly in their hour of trouble, as he took his reluctant departure from a house where his presence was, obviously, no longer needed, and where yet--unfortunate psychologist--he had failed to probe the story to the core, "above all, she must not be hurried!"
It seemed to him that the patient husband had a strange smile on hearing this admonition.
"How much does he know?" asked Châtelard of himself, clinging with characteristic pertinacity to his peculiar interpretation of events. "How much does he suspect?"
Never before, perhaps, had the active-minded and gregarious Frenchman found himself thus regretting the prospect of a return to the congenial movement of his native city. But it was with a definite sense of reluctance that, on this March morning, he drove away through the budding orchard trees, leaving the Old Ancient House and all the desolate moorland behind him. This lonely antique habitation still held close the enigma of lives in which he had become deeply interested--interested, not only with that vivid intelligence which was ever eager to know, but with the warmth of a very excellent heart.