And there she stayed, either on the sofa or half
lost among the cushions of an arm-chair, during the evenings when
John's friends came. But by and by the house-friends one by one ceased
to drop in as they passed down the hall; other friends ceased to ring
the bell: the old lively evenings were impossible with one so frail
and delicate to be cared for.
Reyburn, to be sure, came every day, and no message could shut him
out. If Lilian was not in the parlors, he ran up stairs into the
little sitting-room: if he could not see Lilian, he would walk in and
see her mother. Sometimes John took her out to drive--to give her a
color, as he said--but he was unable to do it often, and then Reyburn
took his place till she declared she would ride no more. It was not so
easy to discover what ailed Lilian as it was to see she failed. One
doctor said she had merely functional derangement of the heart;
another talked about complicated depression of the nerves; and a third
said she was whimsical, and nothing at all was the matter with her,
and she had better marry and taste the hard realities of life, and she
would soon be cured of her follies. But Lilian firmly and quietly
refused to be married yet: possibly she knew that her emotions were
not what they should be for marriage with the man to whom she was
plighted; possibly hoped that time might make it right; possibly
wanted nothing more definite than delay.
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