Anne shook her head. “I never go anywhere.” She was still smiling, but François felt a sudden pang of pity and compunction. To his sensitive ear, the words were an epitome of Anne’s life. When it was growing dusk, they rose, and this evening Anne did not ask them to stay. Often when it was dull, or too cold to sit in the garden, she took them into the library, showed them her favourite books, sometimes read to them. Because as Dacier said, it was good for their English accent, and she had such a beautiful voice. To-day she walked with them to the porch, and said good-bye, in a tone that was as friendly as ever. “Tell me when you decide to go,” she said. “We must have a picnic or something for farewell.” François turned at the gate, and saw her standing in the porch, her dress startlingly white in the dusk. He shrugged his shoulders, but involuntarily the troubling sense of having wounded some defenceless creature, returned to him. He told himself that he was a sentimental fool, but the illusion did not vanish. XIII For the next week, Anne saw little of her friends. The day after the suggestion for their departure had been made, the old doctor who attended Mrs. Burbage, asked to see her. “I’m not satisfied with our patient’s progress,” he said, closing the library door with much precaution. “I think, Miss Page, I should prefer to have another opinion, and I propose writing to-night to Dr. Mears of Harley Street.” Anne listened with fear at her heart, and the next day, the specialist arrived from London. After a lengthy visit, and a subsequent conversation between the doctors, she was told that the case was serious, and an operation would probably be necessary. “Write to her relatives at once,” advised Dr. Mears, taking up his hat. “I can’t disguise from you that there’s cause for anxiety.” Anne obeyed, and her letter was answered by a telegram, announcing the arrival of Mrs. Burbage’s nephew and his wife. The intimation of their proposed visit was received by the patient with a grim smile. “Let them come if they please,” she remarked. “I don’t propose to endure much of their society. I shall claim the privileges of a sick woman.” They arrived the same evening; Mr. Crosby, a weak-looking undecided man of forty, whose thin fair hair was plastered over a retreating forehead, and his wife, a stout somewhat vulgar woman, arrogant and over-bearing. The visit was not a success. Mrs. Burbage, who once decided upon a course of action, remained characteristically obstinate, granted them one interview of ten minutes, after which her door was resolutely closed. Mrs. Crosby, pleading solicitude for the relative who had always repulsed her advances, appealed to Anne, whom she at first treated with the superciliousness suitable to a dependent who had without doubt acquired for her own ends, a culpable ascendency over the old lady’s mind.