At dinner the conversation turned at first on British politics, in which Mrs Finn was quite able to take her part.  Phineas was decidedly of the opinion that Sir Timothy Beeswax and Lord Drummond could not live another session.  And on this subject a good deal was said.  Later in the evening the Duke found himself sitting with Mrs Finn in the broad verandah over the hotel garden, while Lady Mary was playing to Phineas within.  ’How do you think she is looking?’ asked the father.

’Of course I see that she has been ill.  She tells me that she was far from well at Salzburg.’

’Yes;—­indeed for three or four days she frightened me much.  She suffered terribly from headaches.’

‘Nervous headache?’

’So they said there.  I feel quite angry with myself because I did not bring a doctor with us.  The trouble and ceremony of such an accompaniment is no doubt disagreeable.’

‘And I suppose seemed when you started to be unnecessary.’

‘Quite unnecessary.’

‘Does she complain again now?’

‘She did today;—­a little.’

The next morning Lady Mary could not leave her bed, and the Duke in his sorrow was obliged to apply to Mrs Finn.  After what had passed on the previous day Mrs Finn of course called, and was shown at once up to her young friend’s room.  There she found the girl in great pain, lying with her two thin hands up to her head, and hardly able to utter more than a word.  Shortly after that Mrs Finn was alone with the Duke, and then there took place a conversation between them which the lady thought to be very remarkable.

‘Had I better send for a doctor from England?’ he asked.  In answer to this Mrs Finn expressed her opinion that such a measure was hardly necessary, that the gentleman from the town who had been called in seemed to know what he was about, and that the illness, lamentable as it was, did not seem to be in any way dangerous.  ‘One cannot tell what it comes from,’ said the Duke dubiously.

‘Young people, I fancy, are often subject to such maladies.’

‘It must come from something wrong.’

‘That may be said of all sickness.’

’And therefore one tries to find out the cause.  She says that she is unhappy.’  These last words he spoke slowly and in a low voice.  To this Mrs Finn could make no reply.  She did not doubt but that the girl was unhappy, and she knew well why; but the source of Lady Mary’s misery was one to which she could not very well allude.  ‘You know all the misery about that young man.’

‘That is a trouble that requires time to cure it,’ she said,—­not meaning to imply that time would cure it by enabling the girl to forget her lover; but because in truth she had not known what else to say.

‘If time will cure it.’

‘Time, they say, cures all sorrows.’

’But what should I do to help time?  There is no sacrifice I would not make,—­no sacrifice!  Of myself I mean.  I would devote myself to her,—­leave everything else on one side.  We purpose being back in England in October; but I would remain here if I thought it better for her comfort.’