he had then said to her; and when everything had
come back it was quite, at first, for a moment, as
if he had said something that immensely mattered.
He hadn t, however, in fact; it was only as if he
might perhaps after all have been going to. It
was on the sixth within ten days of their sailing
that she had hurried from Boston under the
alarm, a small but a sufficient shock, of hearing that
Mildred had suddenly been taken ill, had had, from
some obscure cause, such an upset as threatened to
stay their journey. The bearing of the accident
had happily soon announced itself as slight, and
there had been, in the event, but a few hours of anx
iety; the journey had been pronounced again not
only possible, but, as representing " change," highly
advisable; and if the zealous guest had had five
minutes by herself with the doctor, that was, clearly,
no more at his instance than at her own. Almost
nothing had passed between them but an easy ex
change of enthusiasms in respect to the remedial
properties of " Europe "; and this assurance, as the
facts came back to her, she was now able to give.
"Nothing whatever, on my word of honour, that
you mayn't know or mightn't then have known.
I ve no secret with him about you. What makes
you suspect it? I don't quite make out how you
know I did see him alone."

"No you never told me," said Milly. " And I
don't mean," she went on, " during the twenty-four
hours while I was bad, when your putting your

[[144]]

p143 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p144w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p145

v?