Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/300

298 find that Sir Jasper makes the slightest allusion to his illness." "He is too kind, too good!" exclaimed Lady Marchmont: "I know he would not alarm me for the world; but I see it in his unsteady writing." "Sir Jasper is advanced in life, you could not expect his hand to be as steady as mine," returned her husband, very calmly. "But his anxiety to see me," interrupted Henrietta. "Is exceedingly natural. There never was any thing so dull as Meredith Place. I shall never forget the few weeks that I spent there." "It was our honeymoon," thought his beautiful wife to herself; but she said nothing. "I really must, once for all" added Lord Marchmont, in an unusually solemn tone, "request that your ladyship will not give way to these whims and caprices. Nothing could be more inconvenient than the way in which you sent for me this morning. You never consider what you interrupt: and, after all, Sir Jasper's illness exists only in your own fancy."