They helped him out to the carriage. He stepped in and took his usual place without speaking again. The car drove off, Fenella holding his hand, the doctor sitting opposite. CHAPTER XXXVI COUNTERCLAIMS There was nothing about their attitude or appearance which indicated the change. Their chairs were so close together that they almost touched. Her white, ringless hand lay in his. Through the wide-open window of their tiny sitting-room they looked down upon the river as they had sat and watched it so many evenings before. Yet the change was unmistakable. Arnold no longer guessed at it--he felt it. The old days of their pleasant comradeship had gone. There were reserves in everything she said. Sometimes she shrank from him almost as though he were a stranger. The eyes that grew bright and still danced with pleasure at his coming, were almost, a moment later, filled with apprehension as she watched him. "Tell me again," he begged, "what the doctor really said! It sounds too good to be true." "So I thought," she agreed, "but I haven't exaggerated a thing. He assured me that there was no risk, no pain, and that the cure was certain. I am to go to the hospital in three weeks' time." "You don't mind it?" "Why should I?" she answered. "The last time," she continued, "it was in France. I remember the white stone corridors, the white room, and the surgeons all dressed in white. Do you know, they say that I shall be out again in a fortnight." He nodded. "I can see you already," he declared, "with a gold-headed stick and a fascinating limp like Marguerite de Vallieres." She smiled very faintly but said nothing. Somehow, it was hard to make conversation. Ruth was unusually pale, even for her. The eyes which followed that line of yellow lights were full of trouble. "Tell me," he begged presently, "you have something on your mind, I am sure. There is nothing you are keeping from me?" "Have I not enough," she asked, "to make me anxious?" "Naturally," he admitted, "and yet, after all, you have only seen your father once in your life." "But I am sure that I could have loved him so much," she murmured. "He seems to have come and gone in a dream." "This morning's report was more hopeful," he reminded her. "There is every chance that he may live." "All the time," she answered, fervently, "I am praying that he may. If he treated my mother badly, I am sure that he has suffered. I can't quite forget, either," she went on, "although that seems selfish, that when I come out of the hospital, even if all goes well, I may still be homeless." He leaned over her. "Ruth," he exclaimed, "what do you mean?" "You know," she answered, simply. "You must know."