hat Alice and Dr. Reed read love in
each other's eyes, and it was about this poor flesh that their hands
were joined as they lifted Olive out of the recumbent position she had
slipped into, and built up the bowed-in pillows. And as it had once been
all Olive in Brookfield, it was now all Alice; the veil seemed suddenly
to have slipped from all eyes, and the exceeding worth of this plain
girl was at last recognized. Mrs. Barton's presence at the bedside did
not soothe the sufferer; she grew restless and demanded her sister. And
the illness continued, her life in the balance till the eighth day. It
was then that she took a turn for the better; the doctor pronounced her
out of danger, and two days after she lay watching Alice and Dr. Reed
talking in the window. 'Were they talking about her?' she asked herself.
She did not think they were. It seemed to her that each was interested
in the other. 'Laying plans,' the sick girl said to herself, 'for
themselves.' At these words her senses dimmed, and when she awoke she
had some difficulty in remembering what she had seen.

XXVII

'Ah, _ce cher Milord, comme il est beau, comme il est parfait!_'
exclaimed Mrs. Barton, as she led him to his chair and poured out his
glass of sherry.

But there was a gloom on his face which laughter and compliments failed
for a moment to dissipate--at last he said:

'Ah, Mrs. Barton, Mrs. Barton! if I hadn't this little retreat to take
refuge in, to hide myself in, during some hours of the day, I should not
be able to bear up--Brookfield has prolonged my life for--'

'I cannot allow such sad thoughts as these,' said Mrs. Barton laughing,
and waving her white hands. 'Who has been teasing _notre cher_ Milord?
What have dreadful Lady Jane and terrible Lady Sarah been doing to him?'

'I shall never forget this morning, no, not if I lived to a thousand,'
the old gentleman murmured plaintively. 'Oh, the scenes--the scenes I
have been through! Cecilia, as I told you yesterday, has been filling
the house with rosaries and holywater-fonts; Jane and Sarah have been
breaking these, and the result has been tears and upbraidings. Last
night at dinner I don't really know what they didn't say to each other;
and then the two elder ones fell upon me and declared that it was all my
fault, that I ought never to have sent my daughter to a Catholic
convent. I was obliged to shut myself up in the study and lock the door.
Then this morning, when I thought it