He was exhausted, languid, and passive, but, at times, seemed to awaken into quickened intelligence; then anon his mind would wander a little, and the names of Hester and Annot were oddly mingled on his feverish tongue. But there was great joy when he became sensible of the perfume of flowers--the sweetest from the conservatory--culled and arranged by the loving hands of the former, in the vases that ornamented his room, and when he fully recognised the latter in attendance upon him. 'My little wife--my child-wife that is to be,' he whispered, 'you love me still, though I am all shattered in this fashion?' Then Annot caressed his hand, and placed her cheek upon it. Guests had all departed, the key was turned in the gun-room door; the dogs were idle in their kennels, and only Elliot, Hester, and Annot remained as visitors at Earlshaugh. The great house seemed very silent now; but Roland, as strength and thought returned, was thankful that the guests he had invited were gone. The difficulty of their presence had been tided over without any unpleasantness (save the affair of Elliot and Sharpe), and now he felt only a loathing of his paternal home, with an intense longing to be gone--to get well and strong--to keep well, and then go, he cared not where at first, so that Annot was with him, and then back to the regiment as soon as possible, even before his leave was ended. Annot was now--unlike the Annot who cowered over the boudoir fire on the morning when Roland was rescued--most effusive in her expressions of regard and compassion, though she was perhaps the most useless assistant a nurse could have in a sick room, the air of which 'so oppressed her poor little head;' and thus she was secretly not ill-pleased when her services there were firmly, but politely, dispensed with by old Mrs. Drugget, the portly housekeeper, who had nursed Roland and his dead brother many a time in their earlier years, and now made herself, as of old, mistress of the situation. Annot's bearing on the eventful morning referred to rankled in the memory of Maude and Hester. They strove to dissemble and veil their growing dislike to, and mistrust of, her under their old bearing and cordiality of habit; but almost in vain, despite her winning, clinging, and child-like ways and pretty tricks of manner. These seemed to fall flatly now on ear and eye, and soon events were to transpire with regard to that young lady which gave them cause for much speculation, suspicion, and positive anger.