Sylvester hoped that so it might be, and made all necessary arrangements for spending part of his winter vacation abroad, all the more willingly, because he knew that the Haredales were somewhere among the towns of the Riviera. So it came to pass that one day, just after Christmas, Lucian lay on a couch under the verandah of one of the prettiest villas of Bordighera, wrapped up and propped with pillows, and listened, with a half-smile, to his mother's assurances to the newly-arrived Sylvester, of how much good the climate was doing him, and how much better he was than he had been in London. "Let Syl stay and talk to me, mother," he said, "and you go and get your drive; he'll take care of me. Perhaps we'll go by and by for a drive in the pony carriage. Then I can show him the place." "Very well," said Mrs Leigh, "that will be very nice for you. But it is good for him to walk a little too, Sylvester. He has been longing for you to come, to show you how much better he can do so." There were anxious lines on her smooth handsome face, which contradicted her cheerful words, as she went away after a little bustle of arrangements, and left the two young men alone together. "Well, dear boy," said Sylvester, turning to his friend, "and how is it? Do you like this lovely place?" "Yes," said Lucian, "the soft air is comfortable, and I can talk better than in the autumn, I have more breath." Sylvester felt as if he had never realised before what the change had been, as he listened to the gentle languid voice, and noticed how the handsome face had lost all its sturdy impassiveness, and had fined away into a sort of ethereal beauty, while nobody could accuse the clear grey eyes now of want of expression. Sylvester hardly knew how to meet their gaze, but it prepared him for the next words. "You won't mind my talking to you, Syl. You know I'm not really any better." "No?" said Sylvester, with difficulty. "No. You see I was so strong and healthy, I took a great deal of killing. But I dare say the doctors always told you that there was fatal mischief done by the strain, and there's not a bit inside me but what's all wrong. I had to know the probabilities before I left England, you see, to get my affairs settled." "It is hard to believe," said Sylvester. "Yes, I suppose I should mind more: but I'm so tired out with pain that any sort of rest seems welcome." Lucian was as straightforward and to the point as ever, and, as his friend did not at once answer, he said-- "I thought you knew it--and it's a comfort to speak out. You see how the mother takes it, and poor old Jackson (he's out here with two of his sisters, you know), he thinks he ought to cheer me up." "Dear Lucy," said Sylvester, "talk just as you like, and when you like; I'm too glad to help you."