She was, it is needless to say, perfectly well aware that he was in love with her, while he was himself modestly reticent on the subject--so far as words went.

But she was not equally quick in penetrating the nature of her own feelings towards Arthur.

Watching the two young people with keen powers of observation, necessarily concentrated on them by the complete seclusion of her life, the invalid lady discovered signs of roused sensibility in Miss Haldane, when Arthur was present, which had never yet shown themselves in her social relations with other admirers eager to pay their addresses to her.

Having drawn her own conclusions in private, Mrs.Carbury took the first favourable opportunity (in Arthur's interests) of putting them to the test.
'I don't know what I shall do,' she said one day, 'when Arthur goes away.' Miss Haldane looked up quickly from her work.

'Surely he is not going to leave us!' she exclaimed.
'My dear! he has already stayed at his uncle's house a month longer than he intended.