Of her own initiative,
she brought a doctor, and went down twice a day to hear reports of
Miltoun's progress.
As a fact, her father and mother had gone to Lord Dennis, for Goodwood,
and the chief difficulty had been to excuse her own neglect of that
favourite Meeting. She had fallen back on the half-truth that Eustace
wanted her in Town; and, since Lord and Lady Valleys had neither of them
shaken off a certain uneasiness about their son, the pretext sufficed:
It was not until the sixth day, when the crisis was well past and
Miltoun quite free from fever, that she again went down to Nettlefold.
On arriving she at once sought out her mother, whom she found in her
bedroom, resting. It had been very hot at Goodwood.
Barbara was not afraid of her--she was not, indeed, afraid of anyone,
except Miltoun, and in some strange way, a little perhaps of Courtier;
yet, when the maid had gone, she did not at once begin her tale. Lady
Valleys, who at Goodwood had just heard details of a Society scandal,
began a carefully expurgated account of it suitable to her daughter's
ears--for some account she felt she must give to somebody.
"Mother," said Barbara suddenly, "Eustace has been ill. He's out
of danger now, and going on all right." Then, looking hard at the
bewildered lady, she added: "Mrs. Noel is nursing him."
The past tense in which illness had been mentioned, checking at the
first moment any rush of panic in Lady Valleys, left her confused by the
situation conjured up in Barbara's last words.
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