It was a year later before Theodora saw her family again. A very severe
attack of bronchitis, complicated by internal catarrh, prostrated Josiah
Brown in the first days of their marriage, and had turned her into a
superintendent nurse for the next three months; by that time a winter at
Hyères was recommended by the best physicians, and off they started.

Hyères, with a semi-invalid, a hospital nurse, and quantities of
medicine bottles and draught-protectors, is not the ideal place one
reads of in guide-books. Theodora grew to hate the sky and the blue
Mediterranean. She used to sit on her balcony at Costebelle and gaze at
the olive-trees, and the deep-green velvet patch of firs beyond, towards
the sea, and wonder at life.

She longed to go to the islands--anywhere beyond--and one day she read
Jean d'Agrève; and after that she wondered what Love was. It took a
mighty hold upon her imagination. It seemed to her it must mean Life.

It was the beginning of May before Josiah Brown thought of leaving for
Paris. England would be their destination, but the doctors assured him a
month of Paris would break the change of climate with more safety than
if they crossed the Channel at once.

Costebelle was a fairyland of roses as they drove to the station, and
peace had descended upon Theodora. She had fallen into her place, a
place occupied by many wives before her with irritable, hypochondriacal
husbands.