Ermine looked up, and Colin was standing over her, muffled up to the
eyes, and a letter of his own in his hand. Her first impulse was to cry
out against his imprudence, glad as she was to see him. "My cough is
nearly gone," he said, unwinding his wrappings, "and I could not stay at
home after this wonderful letter--three pages about chemical analysis,
which he does me the honour to think I can understand, two of
commissions for villainous compounds, and one of protestations that 'I
will be drowned; nobody shall help me.'"
Ermine's laugh had come, even amid her tears, his tone was so great
a relief to her. She did not know that he had spent some minutes
in cooling down his vexation, lest he should speak ungently of her
brother's indifference. "Poor Edward," she said, "you don't mean that
this is all the reply you have?"
"See for yourself," and he pointed to the divisions of the letter he had
described. "There is all he vouchsafes to his own proper affairs. You
see he misapprehends the whole; indeed, I don't believe he has even read
our letters."
"We often thought he did not attend to all we wrote," said Ermine. "It
is very disheartening!"
"Nay, Ermine, you disheartened with the end in view!"
"There are certainly the letters about Maddox's committal still to reach
him, but who knows if they will have more effect! Oh, Colin, this was
such a hope that--perhaps I have dwelt too much upon it!"
"It is such a hope," he repeated. "There is no reason for laying it
aside, because Edward is his old self."
"Colin! you still think so?"
"I think so more than ever. If he will not read reason, he must hear it,
and if he takes no notice of the letters we sent after the sessions, I
shall go and bring him back in time for the assizes."
"Oh, Colin! it cannot be. Think of the risk! You who are still looking
so thin and ill. I cannot let you."
"It will be warm enough by the time I get there."
"The distance! You are doing too much for us."
"No, Ermine," with a smile, "that I will never do."
She tried to answer his smile, but leant back and shed tears, not like
the first, full of pain, but of affectionate gratitude, and yet of
reluctance at his going. She had ever been the strength and stay of the
family, but there seemed to be a source of weakness in his nearness, and
this period of his indisposition and of suspense had been a strain on
her spirits that told in this gentle weeping. "This is a poor welcome
after you have been laid up so long," she said when she could speak
again. "If I behave so ill, you will only want to run from the sight of
me."