Guy’s convalescence was slow—­far slower than we had hoped for.  It seemed as if some spring was broken in his being not easily to be replaced.  He was moody and listless always, speaking very seldom; but his words and manner, when he did talk, were gentler and more kindly than I ever remembered them.

One of his first visitors was Colonel Mohun.  He had been incessant in his inquiries, and had offered to share our watching, but Lady Catharine would not hear of it.  She had a sort of dread at the idea of that grim face lowering over the sick man’s bed.

No one was present at their first interview.  Ralph was more moved than he cared to show at his old friend’s altered looks and ways; but he gave him the account of his search after the lost letter conscientiously, without sparing a single detail.  “It must have gone hard with Guy,” he remarked to me, thoughtfully, as he came away.  “He’s very far from right yet.  When I told him what Willis had done, I made sure he would be very angry.  He only said, ’Poor wretch!  He acted under orders, and did not know what mischief he was doing.’  He wants rousing; but I am sure I don’t know what is to do it.”

Forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries seemed to that hard old heathen the most dangerous sign of bodily and mental debility.

He came almost daily after that, and I think his rough ways, and sharp, sarcastic remarks acted on Livingstone as a sort of tonic—­bitter, but strengthening.

A few days later Mrs. Vavasour called.  She, too, saw Guy alone.  She surely had a message to deliver, or she would not have ventured on an interview which must have been so painful to both.  It did not last long; but when she came down, her thick black veil was drawn closely over her face, and that evening Guy was denied to Ralph Mohun.

One afternoon Livingstone was quite by himself.  The colonel had gone into Warwickshire for a few days’ hunting; Lady Catharine had paid her usual visit and had gone back to her hotel, and I was out for an hour or two.  We did not mind leaving him a good deal alone; indeed, he preferred it very often, and said so.

His servant came in, looking rather puzzled, to say that a lady wished to see him.  She would not give her name, but said that she would not detain him many minutes.

Guy had not time to refuse admittance to the visitor, she followed so close upon her message.  Though she was closely-wrapped in her mantle, and her veil fell in triple folds, there was no mistaking the turn of the haughty head, the smooth, elastic step, and the lithe undulations of a figure matchless between the four seas.  No wonder that he drew his breath hard as he recognized Flora Bellasys.

CHAPTER XXX.

     Treu und fest.

As the door closed, Flora advanced quickly.  “Confess you are surprised to see me,” she said, holding out her little gloved hand.  The courtesy toward the sex, which was hereditary with the Livingstones, contrasting strangely with their fierce, ungovernable tempers, made him not reject it; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of repressed strength that she remembered and liked so well.