The Three Sisters Part 15

"No. But it will be if we don't stop it. How long has it been going on?"

"Ever since we came to this place."

"Six months, you said. And she's been worse than this last month?"

"Much worse."

"If it was only the anaemia--"

"Isn't it?"

"Yes--among other things."

"Not--her heart?"

"No--her heart's all right." He corrected himself. "I mean there's no disease in it. You see, she ought to have got well up here in this air. It's the sort of place you send anaemic people to to cure them."

"The dreadful thing is that she doesn't like the place."

"Ah--that's what I want to get at. She isn't happy in it?"

"No. She isn't happy."

He meditated. "Your sister didn't tell me that.'

"She couldn't."

"I mean your other sister--Miss Cartaret."

"_She_ wouldn't. She'd think it rather awful."

He laughed. "Heaps of people think it awful to tell the truth. Do you happen to know _why_ she doesn't like the place?"

She was silent. Evidently there was some "awfulness" she shrank from.

"Too lonely for her, I suppose?"

"Much too lonely."

"Where were you before you came here?"

She told him.

"Why did you leave it?"

She hesitated again. "We couldn't help it."

"Well--it seems a pity. But I suppose clergymen can't choose where they'll live."

She looked away from him. Then, as if she were trying to divert her from the trail he followed, "You forget--she's been starving herself.

Isn't that enough?"

"Not in her case. You see, she isn't ill because she's been starving herself. She's been starving herself because she's ill. It's a symptom. The trouble is not that she starves herself--but that she's been starved."

"I know. I know."

"If you could get her back to that place where she was happy--"

"I can't. She can never go back there. Besides, it wouldn't be any good if she did."

He smiled. "Are you quite sure?"

"Certain."

"Does she know it?"

"No. She never knew it. But she _would_ know it if she went back."

"That's why you took her away?"

She hesitated again. "Yes."

Rowcliffe looked grave.

"I see. That's rather unfortunate."

He said to himself: "She doesn't take it in _yet_. I don't see how I'm to tell her."

To her he said: "Well, I'll send the medicine along to-night."

As the door closed behind Rowcliffe, Mary appeared on the stairs.

"Gwenda," she said, "Ally wants you. She wants to know what he said."

"He said nothing."

"You look as if he'd said a great deal."

"He said nothing that she doesn't know."

"He told her there was nothing the matter with her except that she'd been starving herself."

"He told me she'd been starved."

"I don't see the difference."

"Well," said Gwenda. "_He_ did."