"Because I didn't know. I went to the Rectory this morning about some parish affairs, and then Arthur told me. He has sent for Frank to come from Oxford, and they are both in a terrible state about Fay. It was really sad to see Frank. What an affectionate nature that boy has! I do feel for him. It is wretched for him to have his sister so ill." "It is far more wretched for her," I said shortly. "I don't know about that," replied Annabel, as if in a way she blamed Fay for causing Frank this mental discomfort. My sister was one of those women who would always sacrifice a woman to a man. Her philosophy of life consisted in the theory that women must work, and men must never on any account be allowed to weep. If they were, the women were in some way to blame. I got up from the table, pushing my untasted plate away from me. "I am going across to the Rectory to see how she is now." "Now, Reggie, don't be silly and make yourself ill by eating no lunch. If you make yourself ill it won't make Fay any better, as two blacks never make a white." "It is all my fault that she is ill. If I hadn't been such an arrant fool her cold wouldn't have got to this pitch," I said savagely. Annabel looked at me with the placidity which had soothed me all my life. "You needn't blame yourself, Reggie, you really needn't. I wish to goodness I'd never mentioned that walk! It might have been wiser it you had taken Frank instead of Fay, perhaps, and would have been equally cheerful for you; but if Fay herself didn't suggest it, I don't see that you were called upon to think of it. When I was Fay's age I was quite capable of taking care of my own colds, and so ought she to be. Though I must say in my young days young people had more stamina than they have now, and wouldn't have thought of letting a cold fly to their lungs in this hurried fashion. In my time a cold began in the head and went down to the throat, and then on to the chest, and only got to the lungs as a last resort--and not that, unless it was neglected. The ordinary cold never went to the lungs at all." Again I felt that Annabel was blaming Fay for allowing herself to have been so rapidly overrun by the invading enemy; so, as I could not bear to hear my darling blamed without standing up for her, and as I likewise couldn't bear to stand up against Annabel for anybody, I went out of the room, banging the door behind me.