“I think, Leila, the doctor’s last tonic has been of use to me—­I feel quite like myself.”  Having thus anticipated her too sharp-eyed niece’s congratulations, Leila’s expression of pleasure came in accordant place.  Whereupon they both smiled across the table, having that delicate appreciation of the needs of the situation which is rarely at the service of the blundering mind of man.

The moment of gentle hypocrisy passed, the mistress of Grey Pine took up her memoranda for the day, and said with some attempt at being just her usual self, “I shall walk to Westways after breakfast—­Pole needs to be talked to.  The meats have been of his worst lately.”  Then with a glance at the paper, “Your uncle’s books must be dusted; I quite forgot it; I will set Susan to work this morning.”

“But,” said Leila, “he does hate that, Aunt Ann.  The last time she succeeded in setting together ‘Don Juan’ and ‘St. Thomas a Kempis.’”

Ann laughed, and said with some of her old sense of humour, “It might do them both good—­dust them yourself.”

“I will,” said Leila, liking the task.

“And when you ride this afternoon, see Mrs. Lamb.  The cook tells me that she hears of that scamp, her son, as in the army—­a nice kind of soldier.”  A half-dozen other errands were mentioned, and they parted, Ann adding, “There is no mail to-day.”

They met again at lunch.  “It is too bad, Leila, Billy was given the letters and forgot them and went a-fishing.  There was a letter for you from Mark Rivers about your uncle.  Does he think me a child?  I read it.”

“You read it, Aunt!” exclaimed Leila astonished at this infraction of their household law.

“Of course I read it.  I knew it must be about James.”  Leila made no reply, but did not like it.

“Here it is, my dear.  I fear James is in a more serious state than I was led to believe by their first letters.  There is also a letter from John to you.”  She did not ask to see it, and Leila took both missives and presently went away to the stables.  Even John, as was plain, was forgotten in her aunt’s anxiety in regard to her husband.

Her many errands over, Leila riding slowly through the lonely wood-roads read the letters: 

“My Dear Leila,” wrote Rivers, “you had better let your aunt know that the Colonel’s wound must have so shocked the brain, though there is no fracture, as to have left him in a mental state which gives me the utmost anxiety.  You will sadly realize my meaning when you see him.  Be careful how you tell your aunt.

“Yours truly,

“MARK RIVERS.”

Here indeed was trouble.  Leila’s eyes filled and tears fell on the paper.  She rode on deep in thought, and at last securing the message of calamity in her belt opened John’s letter.