As soon as Catherine came in, he communicated to her the object of his visit.

"Mrs. King, I have brought you some good news. Your niece is now so much better that I think we ought to get her out of town as soon as we can.

That is all she wants now. She will quickly recover her health in the country."

Catherine's face brightened up with the great joy she felt; she had been so eagerly looking forward to the time when she should have her darling all to herself again.

"I am so glad to hear this, Dr. Duncan," she said. "It is very kind of you to bring this news to me in person. I will take her to the sea-side without delay. When do you think she could start?"

"Very soon. But, Mrs. King, if you have no place in view to which you would like to take her, I have a suggestion to make. The sea-side is very well if you have really good lodgings; but, as a rule, you can't get the care and cooking in sea-side lodgings that I should like Miss King to have. It will not do to risk anything with her at present. Now my sister, who is a widow with two little children, lives in a cottage near Farnham, in the prettiest and healthiest part of Surrey. I have talked to her on the subject, and she would be so pleased if Mary would pay her a visit. She would get pure air and good country food there. I believe it would do her a great deal of good, far more so, indeed, than going to some strange lodging in a sea-side place. She would have pleasant society there, too, and I know that she and my sister would get on well together. Farnham is only about an hour from London, so you could easily run down and see her, and stay a few days occasionally.

Now, Mrs. King, let me persuade you, as you love your niece, to agree to this."

Catherine first frowned, then the picture of that poor thin face rose to her mind.

"It would do her good, you think?"

"I am sure of it, and I have yet another reason for her going down there: after attacks like those your niece has suffered from, it is often advisable to change all the a.s.sociations of the patient for a time. It is better, sometimes, that there should be a complete separation from old intimates, especially relatives I think it would be unwise if you lived entirely with Miss King for the present. To see her occasionally, though, would of course do her good."

The woman was grievously disappointed, but she said:

"Yes, I have heard that. It is hard for me to be separated from Mary; but I know it will be good for her. I will accept this kind offer of yours. You are a good man, Dr. Duncan," she added, as he rose to shake hands with her before going. "I am very grateful to you; and what is more, I admire and respect you. Excuse my eccentric way of putting things, but I always mean what I say, and, alas! there are very few people to whom I would say those words."

CHAPTER XVIII.

AMONG THE GREEN LEAVES.

"Aunty Mary, are oo wicked?"

The speaker was a pretty healthy-looking boy of five.

The young girl whom he addressed as Aunty Mary was leaning back languidly in a comfortable arm-chair, which had been placed under the shade of a fine old beech-tree, standing on the lawn of a small but beautiful garden.

At the back of the lawn was a cheerful-looking little cottage, almost smothered in flowering creepers.

The girl was propped up on pillows, and there were wraps around her to protect her from the spring wind. She was evidently in a state of convalescence from a serious illness; and, indeed, she still seemed so fragile that one would have said she was hardly likely to see the ripened fruit of the blossoms that made the apple orchard beyond the garden look so lovely on that early spring day.

As she lay back, a closed book in one hand, and a bunch of violets and primroses, which the children had just brought her, in the other, her large wistful eyes were gazing pensively through an opening in the green foliage, to where below the orchards, at some distance off, there stretched a broad sheet of blue water rippling in the soft wind, surrounded by dark spreads of moor and glittering streaks of yellow sand, backed afar off by undulating hills of heather.

It was indeed a lovely view, as lovely a one as even beautiful Surrey can show. Not many Londoners know this Frensham Pond, as it is called, and all that sweet valley of the upper Wey into which its waters drain, though these are not more than thirty miles from the metropolis.

The little boy who spoke was sitting at the girl's feet with his head resting on her lap.

He had been looking up into her face for some minutes silently, in a solemn wondering manner, as she gazed over him towards the lake in an absent-minded mood.

"Aunty Mary, are oo wicked?"

"Why do you ask such a funny question?" she said as she stroked his soft curls.

"Cos mummy says, 'Good people is always happy and laugh, but bad ones cry and are sorry.' Oo never laugh, Aunty Mary, but oo are not bad, are oo?"

"You silly little boy!" interrupted a little girl who was a year younger than her brother, "you know poor aunty's not well. That's why she don't laugh. You'd cry, you'd be very naughty if you felt bad like aunty Mary."

"You little darlings!" cried the girl as she pressed them to her with warm affection and kissed them.

"But oh, Aunty Mary," continued Bobby, who had a great taste for philosophical disquisitions, and was especially fond of adducing arguments to prove the fallacy of the doctrine as regards retributive justice, which those in authority over him tried to inculcate into his acute little mind. "But oh, Aunty Mary, I believe that Anne (the cook) is an awful bad woman, and yet she laughs very loud."

"She isn't bad, Bobby!" emphatically denied the sister.

"She is! doo know, aunty," and he spoke in a tone of mysterious confidence, "doo know--mummy told them not to tell me; but I know--Anne drowned all the poor baby dogs. There was six of them. Isn't she very bad to kill all the poor little baby dogs, aunty?"

To the surprise of the children, Mary's response was a flood of hysterical tears. Weakened by her illness, and in the early stage of convalescence, she could not contain her feelings, and the innocent words of the babies pierced her heart with bitter memories.

At this moment the mother of the children approached the group.

"Oh, mummy!" cried the puzzled Bobby running up to her, "poor Aunty Mary's so bad. She's so sorry because the little baby dogs is killed."

Mrs. White was an active pretty little woman in a widow's cap. Her face had a calm serenity in it, a great amiability which was yet free from weakness, and which at once fascinated anyone who looked at her.

No one could know the sister of Dr. Duncan and fail to love her.

She came up to Mary and kissed her, and soothed her in her own sweet feminine way. No influence could be more soothing than hers. To lessen affliction was with her a gift.

The girl feeling tranquil again, put her arms round her neck and kissed her.

"You have been out too long, dear," said Mrs. White. "Come in now. I want you to lie on the sofa, and hear me play a new piece of music Harry has just sent me." She had observed before how beneficial an effect music had on the girl, and she knew when to employ it.

For such was this woman. She would notice all the little tastes of those who were with her, especially of this sick girl, whom her brother had confided to her care, and un.o.btrusively, without the object of her attention ever guessing it, she would do the right thing to please at the right time.

Mary had not been long in this pleasant cottage among the Surrey hills before she conceived a great affection for this good woman and her three little children.

At times now she was very happy; but it was a painful happiness, for she was frightened at the very greatness of it, feeling that it could not be for long. When the shadow, as it often did, came across her mind, it seemed all the more horrible and dark in contrast to the innocent light around her.

So her sadness deepened. The thought of the terrible future preyed on her mind. The knowledge that she was pledged to perform a fearful duty, made her tremble at the deliciousness of this new life, this glorious paradise, of which she was allowed a pa.s.sing glimpse, but which must be for ever closed to her.

This prevented her brain from recovering beyond a certain point, and on some days her memory would leave her, and she would be like a child again, a helpless, lovable witless creature, to see whom was to bring tears to the eyes of the hardest.

One circ.u.mstance, happily for herself, was entirely erased from her memory, never to return to it--this was Susan's confession of the barrister's murder. She distinctly remembered going into the ward and recognizing her old benefactor, but on what happened after that, her mind was a complete blank. She knew nothing of Susan's cold-blooded explanation, or of her own fainting-fit.

Mrs. White was a truly religious woman, and Dr. Duncan, thinking it well, if only from a physical point of view, to divert the girl's thoughts into ways of consolation, had hinted to his sister that Mary had been educated by an atheist, and so most probably herself entertained rather strange opinions on the subject of religion.

Thereupon the woman, without obtruding it in any way, yet contrived to bring before the girl's observation, how intimately religion entered into the daily life of herself and others, how in sorrow they were comforted by their faith, and looked forward to happiness beyond the grave.

All this seemed so strange to the girl at first. She looked on with a mild mournful wonder, yet envied this mental state so entirely opposite to her own.

"The simple happy people," she thought. "Ah! that I was like them and did not know."