Chapter 40

Fan read the sketch, but her mind was too much occupied with all she had
just heard, in addition to the joy she felt at having recovered her
friend, to pay much attention to it. Moreover the increasing heat began
to oppress her; she marvelled that Constance, accustomed all her life to
the freedom and cool expanse of the country, should find it possible to
work in such an atmosphere and amidst such surroundings.

At length, Merton, who had been coughing a great deal while dressing,
came in assisted by his wife, but quite exhausted with the exertion of
walking from one room to the other; and after shaking hands with their
visitor he sunk into his easy-chair, not yet able to talk. She was
greatly shocked at the change in him; the once fine, marble-like face was
horribly wasted, so that the sharp unsightly bones looked as if they
would cut their way through the deadly dry parchment-yellow skin that
covered them; and the deep blue eyes now looked preternaturally large and
bright--all the brighter for the dark purple stains beneath them. He was
low indeed, nigh unto death perhaps; yet he did not appear cast down in
the least, but even while he sat breathing laboriously, still unable to
speak, the eyes had a pleased hopeful look as they rested on their
visitor's face. A smile, too, hovered about the corners of his mouth as
his glance wandered over her costume. For, in spite of feeling the heat a
great deal, she _looked_ cool in her light-hued summer dress, with
its dim blue pattern on a cream-coloured ground. The loose fashion in
which it was made, the tints, and light frosting of fine lace on neck and
sleeves, harmonised well with the grey tender eyes, the pure delicate
skin, and golden hair.

"You could not have chosen a fitter costume to visit us in," said Merton
at length. "I can hardly believe that you come to us from some other part
of this same foul, hot, dusty London. To my fever-parched fancy you seem
rather to have come from some distant unpolluted place, where green
leaves flutter in the wind and cast shadows on the ground; where crystal
showers fall, and the vision of the rainbow is sometimes seen."

Constance came to his side and bent over him.

"You must not be tyrannical, Connie," he said. "I really must talk. Even
a bird in prison sings its song after a fashion, and why not I?"

And seeing him so anxious to begin she made no further objection,
contenting herself with giving him a draught from his medicine bottle.
She had already told him Fan's story, and he had heard it with some
interest. He congratulated the girl on having found a brother in his old
school-fellow, Arthur Eden, and took some merit to himself for having
brought them together. But