“I know he is fond of the place,” she added in conclusion, after setting out all the merits of the villa with feminine minuteness; “at least I know he used to like it, and I think it would please him to get well there.  I can only say that it would make me very happy; so do arrange it, dear Mr. Fenton, if possible, and oblige yours ever faithfully, ADELA BRANSTON.”

“Poor little woman,” murmured Gilbert, as he finished the letter.  “No; we will not impose upon her kindness; we will go somewhere else.  Better for her that she should see and hear but little of John Saltram for all time to come; and then the foolish fancy will wear itself out perhaps, and she may live to be a happy wife yet; unless she, too, is afflicted with the fatal capability of constancy.  Is that such a common quality, I wonder? are there many so luckless as to love once and once only, and who, setting all their hopes upon one cast, lose all if that be fatal?”

Gilbert told John Saltram of Mrs. Branston’s offer, which he was as prompt to decline as Gilbert himself had been.  “It is like her to wish it,” he said; “but no, I should feel myself a double traitor and impostor under her roof.  I have done her wrong enough already.  If I could have loved her, Gilbert, all might have been well for you and me.  God knows I tried to love her, poor little woman; and she is just the kind of woman who might twine herself about any man’s heart—­graceful, pretty, gracious, tender, bright and intelligent enough for any man; and not too clever.  But my heart she never touched.  From the hour I saw that other, I was lost.  I will tell you all about that some day.  No; we will not go to the villa.  Write and give Mrs. Branston my best thanks for the generous offer, and invent some excuse for declining it; that’s a good fellow.”

By-and-by, when the letter was written, John Saltram said,—­“I do not want to go out of town at all, Gilbert.  It’s no use for the doctor to talk; I can’t leave London till we have news of Marian.”

Gilbert had been prepared for this, and set himself to argue the point with admirable patience.  Mr. Proul’s work would go on just as well, he urged, whether they were in London or at Hampton.  A telegram would bring them any tidings as quickly in the one place as the other.  “I am not asking you to go far, remember,” he added.  “You will be within an hour’s journey of London, and the doctors declare this change is indispensable to your recovery.  You have told us what a horror you have of these rooms.”

“Yes; I doubt if any one but a sick man can understand his loathing of the scene of his illness.  That room in there is filled with the shadows that haunted me in all those miserable nights—­when the fever was at its worst, and I lived amidst a crowd of phantoms.  Yes, I do most profoundly hate that room.  As for this matter of change of air, Gilbert, dispose of me as you please; my worthless existence belongs to you.”