The sudden question would certainly have brought about a disclosure if any were to have been made; but Mrs. Lavender assured Sheila that Mr. Ingram had told her nothing, that she had been forming her own conclusions, and that she still doubted that they were right.

“Now sit down and read to me.  You will find Marcus Antoninus on the top of those books.”

“Frank is in the drawing-room,” observed Sheila mildly.

“He can wait,” said the old woman sharply.

“Yes, but you cannot expect me to keep him waiting,” with a smile which did not conceal her very definite purpose.

“Then ring, and bid him come up.  You will soon get rid of those absurd sentiments.”

Sheila rang the bell, and sent Mrs. Paterson down for Lavender, but she did not betake herself to Marcus Antoninus.  She waited a few minutes, and then her husband made his appearance, whereupon she sat down and left to him the agreeable duty of talking with this toothless old heathen about funerals and lingering death.

“Well, Aunt Lavender, I am sorry to hear you have been ill, but I suppose you are getting all right again, to judge by your looks.”

“I am not nearly as ill as you expected.”

“I wonder you did not say ‘hoped,’” remarked Lavender carelessly.  “You are always attributing the most charitable feelings to your fellow-creatures.”

“Frank Lavender,” said the old lady, who was a little pleased by this bit of flattery, “if you came here to make yourself impertinent and disagreeable, you can go down stairs again.  Your wife and I get on very well without you.”

“I am glad to hear it,” he said:  “I suppose you have been telling her what is the matter with you.”

“I have not.  I don’t know.  I have had a pain in the head and two fits, and I dare say the next will carry me off.  The doctors won’t tell me anything about it, so I suppose it is serious.”

“Nonsense!” cried Lavender.  “Serious!  To look at you, one would say you never had been ill in your life.”

“Don’t tell stories, Frank Lavender.  I know I look like a corpse, but I don’t mind it, for I avoid the looking-glass and keep the spectacle for my friends.  I expect the next fit will kill me.”

“I’ll tell you what it is, Aunt Lavender:  if you would only get up and come with us for a drive in the Park, you would find there was nothing of an invalid about you; and we should take you home to a quiet dinner at Notting Hill, and Sheila would sing to you all the evening, and to-morrow you would receive the doctors in state in your drawing-rooms, and tell them you were going for a month to Malvern.”

“Your husband has a fine imagination, my dear,” said Mrs. Lavender to Sheila.  “It is a pity he puts it to no use.  Now I shall let both of you go.  Three breathing in this room are too many for the cubic feet of air it contains.  Frank, bring over those scales and put them on the table, and send Paterson to me as you go out.”