Constance had heard, but she looked only at young Mrs.Malcourt.Shiela alone had been unconscious of the voice of her lord and master.
She looked bravely back into the golden-brown eyes of Miss Palliser; and, suddenly realising that, somehow, this woman knew the truth, flinched pitifully.
But Constance crushed the slender, colourless hands in her own, speaking tremulously low: "Perhaps he'll have a chance now.

I am so thankful that you've come." "Yes." Her ashy lips formed the word, but there was no utterance.
Dinner was announced with a decorous modulation befitting the circumstances.
Malcourt bore himself faultlessly during the trying function; Wayward was moody; his cynical glance through his gold-rimmed glasses resting now on Malcourt, now on Shiela.

The latter ate nothing, which grieved Portlaw beyond measure, for the salad was ambrosial and the capon was truly Louis XI.
Later the men played Preference, having nothing else to do after the ladies left, Constance insisting on taking Shiela back to her own house, and Malcourt acquiescing in the best of taste.
The stars were out; a warm, sweet, dry wind had set in from the south-west.
"It was what we've prayed for," breathed Constance, pausing on the lawn.
"It was what the doctors wanted for him.

How deliciously warm it is! Oh, I hope it will help him!" "Is that _his_ cottage ?" whispered Shiela.
"Yes....

His room is there where the windows are open....