Dinah heaved a deep sigh of relief, and
pointed silently to the chair that stood between them. She did not
speak, perhaps because she could not: her face looked as though she
had passed through an illness. Elizabeth, with her wonted quickness,
answered Malcolm's unspoken question.
"Dinah has had one of her bad sick headaches, and has only just come
downstairs. All this sad business has upset her greatly, but you
will be her best physician," with the old beaming smile which
Malcolm dared not meet. "Now," with a housewifely air, "shall I give
you some tea? You will dine with us, of course?" But Malcolm
declined the offered refreshment.
"I will dine with you if you wish it," he said rather formally, "and
if you and Miss Templeton will excuse the absence of war-paint; but
I am going back to town to-night."
"Oh no, not to-night!" she exclaimed in quite a shocked voice; "you
will be so tired." But Malcolm assured her with absolute truth that
he had never been less tired in his life. The storm and stress and
excitement of the day had acted on him like a tonic as well as an
anodyne; in thinking and planning for others he had found relief
from the intolerable ache of ever-present pain that had made ms life
so purgatorial of late, and the unhealed wound throbbed less
cruelly.
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