Frank was certainly better. Ever since that sight of Eleonora he had been mending. If he muttered her name, or looked distressed, it was enough to guide his hand to her token, he smiled and slept again; and on the Sunday morning his throat and mouth were so much better, that he could both speak and swallow without nearly so much pain; but one of his earliest sayings was, "Louder, please, I can't hear. When does she come?" Mrs. Poynsett raised her voice, Anne tried; but he frowned and sighed, and only when Miles uttered a sea-captain's call close to his ear, did he smile comprehension, adding, "Were you shouting?" a fact only too evident to those around. "Then I'm deaf," he said. And Anne wrote and set before him, "We hope it will pass as you get better." He looked grateful, but there was little more communication, for his eyes and head were still weak, and signs and looks were the chief currency; however, Julius met Eleonora after morning service, to beg her to renew her visit, after having first prepared her for what she would find. Eleonora was much distressed; then paused a minute, and said, "It does him good to see me?" "It seems to be the one thing that keeps him up," said Julius, surprised at the question. "O, yes! I can't--I could not stay away," she said. "It is all so wrong together; yet this last time cannot hurt!" "Last time?" "Yes; did you not know that papa has set his heart on going to London to-morrow? Yes, early to-morrow. And it will be for ever. We shall never see Sirenwood again." She stood still, almost bent with the agony of suppressed grief. "I am very sorry; but I do not wonder he wishes for change." "He has been in an agony to go these three days. It was all I could do to get him to stay to-day. You don't think it will do Frank harm? Then I would stay, if I took lodgings in the village; but otherwise--poor papa--I think it is my duty--and he can't do without me." "I think Frank is quite capable of understanding that you are forced to go, and that he need not be the worse for it." "And then," she lowered her voice, "it does a little reconcile me that I don't think we ought to go further into it till we can understand. I did make that dreadful vow. I know I ought not now; but still I did, in so many words." "You mean against a gambler?" "If it had only been against a gambler; but I was stung, and wanted to guard myself, and made it against any one who had ever betted! If I go on, I must break it, you see, and if I do might it not bring mischief on him? I don't even feel as if it were _true_ to have come to him on Friday, and now--yet they said it was the only chance for his life."