“Be brave, my dear,” he said, with faltering voice, “and put aside, if you can, the thought of your bitter, terrible disappointment.  Only you can cheer, and inspire, and aid your husband to maintain the calmness of spirit which is of such vital importance to his chance of recovery.  You can’t leave him against his wish at such a moment; not if you are the—­the angel I believe you to be,” said John, with emotion.

There was a pause, and though he looked away from her, he knew that she was crying.

John released the little hand gently, and walked to the fireplace to give her time to recover herself.  Perhaps his eye-glasses were dimmed; he polished them very carefully.

Lady Mary dashed away her tears, and spoke in a hard voice he scarcely recognized as hers.

“I might be all—­you think me, John,” she said, “if—­”

“Ah! don’t let there be an if,” said John.

“But—­”

“Or a but.”

“It is that you don’t understand the situation,” she said; “you talk as though Sir Timothy and I were an ordinary husband and wife, entirely dependent on one another’s love and sympathy.  Don’t you know he stands alone—­above all the human follies and weaknesses of a mere woman?  Can’t you guess,” said Lady Mary, passionately, “that it’s my boy, my poor faulty, undutiful boy—­oh, that I should call him so!—­who needs me? that it’s his voice that would be calling in my heart whilst I awaited Sir Timothy’s pleasure to-morrow?”

“His pleasure?” said John, sternly.

“I am shocking you, and I didn’t want to shock you,” she cried, almost wildly.  “But you don’t suppose he needs me—­me myself?  He only wants to be sure I’m doing the right thing.  He wants to give people no chance of saying that Lady Mary Crewys rushed off to see her spoilt boy whilst her husband hovered between life and death.  A lay figure would do just as well; if it would only sit in an armchair and hold its handkerchief to its eyes; and if the neighbours, and his sisters, and the servants could be persuaded to think it was I.”

“Hush, hush!” said John.

“Do let me speak out; pray let me speak out,” she said, breathless and imploring, “and you can think what you like of me afterwards, when I am gone, if only you won’t scold now.  I am so sick of being scolded,” said Lady Mary.  “Am I to be a child for ever—­I, that am so old, and have lost my boy?”

He thought there was something in her of the child that never grows up; the guilelessness, the charm, the ready tears and smiles, the quick changes of mood.

He rolled an elbow-chair forward, and put her into it tenderly.

“Say what you will,” said John.

“This is comfortable,” she said, leaning her head wearily on her hand; “to talk to a—­a friend who understands, and who will not scold.  But you can’t understand unless I tell you everything; and Timothy himself, after all, would be the first to explain to you that it isn’t my tears nor my kisses, nor my consolation he wants.  You didn’t think so really, did you?”