"I almost think I'd better."
"He won't be a bit of good, you know. He never is. He doesn't even
know we sent for you."
"Well, then--"
"You'd better tell me straight out. You'll have to, in the end. Is it
serious?"
"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.
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