After that Susan saw her but once again. As time went on she heard a vague rumour that the Latimers were anxious about Margery's health. Just at that time the mill hands gossiped a good deal about Willowfield, because the Reverend John Baird was said to be going to Europe. That led to talk on the subject of other Willowfield people, and the Latimers among them. In the rare, brief letters Margery wrote to her _protegee_, she did not say she was ill. Once she said her brother Lucien had quite suddenly come to Boston to see how she was, because her mother imagined she must have taken cold. She had been in Boston about a year then. One afternoon Susan was in her room, standing by her bed forlornly, and, in a vacant, reasonless mood, turning over the few coarse little garments she had been able to prepare for her child--a few common little shirts and nightgowns and gray flannels--no more. She heard someone at the door. The handle turned and the door opened as if the person who came in had forgotten the ceremony of knocking. Susan laid down on the bed the ugly little night-dress she had been looking at; it lay there stiff with its coarseness, its short arms stretched out. She turned about and faced Margery Latimer, who had crossed the threshold and stood before her. Susan uttered a low, frightened cry before she could speak a word. The girl looked like a ghost. It was a ghost Susan thought of this time, and not a flower. The pure little face was white and drawn, the features were sharpened, the harebell-coloured eyes had almost a look of wildness; it was as if they had been looking at something frightening for a long time, until they could not lose the habit of expressing fear. "Susan," she said, in a strange, uncertain voice, "you didn't expect to see me." Susan ran to her. "No, no," she said, "I didn't know you was here. I thought you was in Boston. What's the matter? Oh, Lawsy, Margery, what's happened to make you look like this?" "Nobody knows," answered Margery. "They say it's the cold. They are frightened about me. I'm come to say good-bye to you, Susan." She sank into a chair and sat there, panting a little. "Lucien's going to take me to Europe," she said, her voice all at once seeming to sound monotonous, as if she was reciting a lesson mechanically. "I always wanted to go there--to visit the picture galleries and study. They think the climate will be good for me. I've been coughing in the mornings--and I can't eat." "Do they think you might be going into--a consumption?" Susan faltered. "Mother's frightened," said Margery. "She and the doctor don't know what to think. Lucien's going to take me to Europe. It's expensive, but--but he has managed to get the money. He sold a little farm he owned." "He's a good brother," said Susan. Suddenly Margery began to cry as if she could not help it.