I untied my bonnet and put my veil half up—I think I mean half down, but it matters very little—and wrote on one of my cards that I happened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to Mr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be by chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw that he was very sorry for me.
“You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. Woodcourt,” said I, “but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe illness.”
“Ah! Little Miss Flite!” he said. “She lives the same life yet?”
“Just the same.”
I was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to be able to put it aside.
“Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most affectionate creature, as I have reason to say.”
“You—you have found her so?” he returned. “I—I am glad of that.” He was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak.
“I assure you,” said I, “that I was deeply touched by her sympathy and pleasure at the time I have referred to.”
“I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill.”
“I was very ill.”
“But you have quite recovered?”