Part 91 (2/2)
”Lionel--you hear? Take my own horse--he will carry you like the wind.
Off to --------; it is the nearest telegraph station.”
Darrell did not stir from Waife's bedside all that anxious eight. Dr.
F------ arrived at morning. He approved of all that had been done, but nevertheless altered the treatment; and after staying some hours, said to Darrell: ”I am compelled to leave you for the present, nor could I be of use in staying. I have given all the aid in my power to Nature--we must leave the rest to Nature herself. That fever--those fierce throes and spasms--are but Nature's efforts to cast off the grasp of the enemy we do not see. It now depends on what degree of rallying power be left to the patient. Fortunately his frame is robust, yet not plethoric. Do you know his habits?”
”I know,” answered George--”most temperate, most innocent.”
”Then, with constant care, minute attention to my directions, he may recover.”
”If care and attention can save my guest's life, he shall not die,” said Darrell.
The physician looked at the speaker's pale face and compressed lips.
”But, Mr. Darrell, I must not have you on my hands too. You must not be out of your bed again tonight.”
”Certainly not,” said George. ”I shall watch alone.”
”No,” cried Lionel, ”that is my post too.”
”Pooh!” said Darrell; ”young men so far from Death are not such watchful sentinels against his stroke as men of my years, who have seen him in all aspects; and, moreover, base indeed in the host who deserts his own guest's sick-chamber. Fear not for me, doctor; no man needs sleep less than I do.”
Dr. F------ slid his hand on Darrell's pulse. ”Irregular--quick; but what vitality! what power!--a young man's pulse. Mr. Darrell, many years for your country's service are yet in these l.u.s.ty beats.”
Darrell breathed his chronic sigh, and turning back to Waife's bedside, said to the doctor, ”When will you come again?”
”The day after to-morrow.”
When the doctor returned, Waife was out of immediate danger. Nature, fortified by the ”temperate, innocent habits” which husband up her powers, had dislodged, at least for a time, her enemy; but the attack was followed by extreme debility. It was clear that for days, perhaps even weeks to come, the vagrant must remain a prisoner under Darrell's roof-tree.
Lionel had been too mindful of Sophy's anxiety to neglect writing to Lady Montfort the day after Waife's seizure. But he could not find the heart to state the old man's danger; and with the sanguine tendencies of his young nature, even when at the worst he clung to belief in the best.
He refrained from any separate and private communication of Waife's state to Lady Montfort, lest the sadness it would not fail to occasion her should be perceptible to Sophy, and lead her to divine the cause. So he contented himself with saying that Waife had accompanied him to Mr.
Darrell's, and would be detained there, treated with all kindness and honour, for some days.
Sophy's mind was relieved by this intelligence, but it filled her with wonder and conjecture. That Waife, who had so pertinaciously refused to break bread as a guest under any man's roof-tree, should be for days receiving the hospitality of Lionel Haughton's wealthy and powerful kinsman, was indeed mysterious. But whatever brought Waife and Lionel thus in confidential intercourse could not but renew yet more vividly the hopes she had been endeavouring of late to stifle. And combining together many desultory remembrances of words escaped unawares from Lionel, from Lady Montfort, from Waife himself, the truth (of which her native acuteness had before admitted glimpses) grew almost clear to her.
Was not Mr. Darrell that relation to her lost mother upon whom she had claims not hitherto conceded? Lionel and Waife both with that relation now! Surely the clouds that had rested on her future were admitting the sun through their opening rents--and she blushed as she caught its ray.
CHAPTER VI.
INDIVIDUAL CONCESSIONS ARE LIKE POLITICAL; WHEN YOU ONCE BEGIN, THERE IS NO SAYING WHERE YOU WILL STOP.
Waife's first words on recovering consciousness were given to thoughts of Sophy. He had promised her to return, at farthest, the next day; she would be so uneasy he must get up--he must go at once. When he found his strength would not suffer him to rise, he shed tears. It was only very gradually and at intervals that he became acquainted with the length and severity of his attack, or fully sensible that he was in Darrell's house; that that form, of which he had retained vague dreamy reminiscences, hanging over his pillow, wiping his brow, and soothing him with the sweetest tones of the sweet human voice--that that form, so genial, so brotherlike, was the man who had once commanded him not to sully with his presence a stainless home.
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