’I have not answered your question yet, but I think I will do so by signing myself,

’Yours, always and for ever,

‘Gladys.’

‘Will he understand that, Ursula?’

‘Surely, dear; the end is plain enough:  you belong to Max now.’

‘I like to know that,’ she returned simply.  ’Oh, the rest of feeling that he will take care of me now! it is too good to talk about.  But I hope I am sufficiently thankful.’  And Gladys’s lovely eyes were full of solemn feeling as she spoke.

I thought she wanted to be quiet,—­it was difficult for her to realise her happiness at once,—­so I told her that I had some letters to write, and carried my desk into the next room, but she followed me after a time, and we had a long talk about Max.

When Mr. Hamilton came up in the evening he noticed the improvement in Gladys’s appearance.

‘You are better to-night, my dear.’

‘Oh yes, so much better,’ looking up in his face with a smile.  ’Giles, do you think it would hurt me to have a drive to-morrow?  I am so tired of these two rooms.  A drive alone with Ursula would be delicious.  We could go down the Redstone lanes towards Pemberley:  one always has a whiff of sea-air there over the downs.’

Gladys’s request surprised me quite as much as it did Mr. Hamilton.  She had proposed it in all innocence; no idea of encountering Max entered her head for a moment; Gladys’s simplicity would be incapable of laying plans of this sort.  Her new-born happiness made her anxious to lay aside her invalid habits; she wanted to be strong, to resume daily life, to breathe the fresh outer air.

As for Mr. Hamilton, he did not try to conceal his pleasure.

‘I see we shall soon lose our patient, nurse,’ he said, with one of his old droll looks.  ’She is anxious to make herself independent of us.—­Oh, you shall go, by all means.  I will go round to the stable and tell Atkinson myself.  It is an excellent idea, Gladys.’

’I am so glad you do not object.  I am so much stronger this evening, and I have wanted to go out for days; but, Giles,’—­touching his arm gently,—­’you will make Etta understand that I want to go alone with Ursula.’

‘Certainly, my dear.’  He would not cross her whim; she might have her way if she liked; but the slight frown on his face showed that he was not pleased at this allusion to Miss Darrell.  He thought Gladys was almost morbidly prejudiced against her cousin; but he prudently refrained from telling her so, and Gladys went to bed happy.

I had taken the precaution of asking Chatty to wake me the next morning.  I had slept little the previous night, and was afraid that I might oversleep myself in consequence.  It was rather a trial when her touch roused me out of a delicious dream; but one glance at Gladys’s pale face made me ashamed of my indolence.  I dressed myself as quickly as I could, and then looked at my little clock.  Chatty had been better than her word:  it had not struck five yet.