At the end of that time, he came to Nan's sitting-room with a look of quiet purpose on his face. "May I speak to you for a minute?" he began formally—he had got into the way of speaking very formally and ceremoniously to her now. "Can you listen to me?"
"Certainly. Won't you sit down?"
But he preferred to remain standing at an angle where she could not see his face without turning her head. "I have been talking to Dr. Burrows about you. He tells me, I am sorry to say, that you are still very weak; but he thinks that there is nothing wrong but weakness, though that is bad enough in itself. But he wishes me also to say—you will remember that it is he who speaks, not I—that if you could manage to rouse yourself, Nan, if you would made an effort to get stronger, he thinks you might do it, if you chose."
"Like Mrs. Dombey," said Nan, with a faint, cheerless smile.
"He is afraid," Sydney went on, with the air of one who repeats a lesson, "that you are drifting into a state of hopeless invalidism, which you might still avoid. Once in that state you would not die, Nan, as you might like to do: you would live for years in helpless, useless, suffering. Nan, my dear, it is very hard for me to say this to you"—his voice quivering—"but I promised Burrows, for your own sake, that I would. Such a life, Nan, would be torture to you; and you have still within your power—you can prevent it if you chose."
"It seems to me very cruel to say so," Nan answered, quietly. "What can I do that I have not done? I have taken all the doctors' remedies and done exactly as they bade me. I am very tired of being ill and weak, I assure you. It is not my fault that I should like to die."
She began to cry a little as she spoke. Her mouth and chin quivered: the tears ran slowly over her white cheeks. Sydney drew a step nearer.
"No, it isn't your fault," he said, hoarsely, "it is mine. I believe I am killing you by inches. Do you want to make me feel myself a murderer? Could you not—even for my poor sake—try to get stronger, Nan, try to take an interest in something—something healthy and reasonable? That is what Dr. Burrows says you need; and I can't do this thing for you; I, whom you don't love any longer," he said, with a sudden fury of passion which stopped her tears at once, "but who love you with all my heart, as I never loved in all my life before—I swear it before God!"
He stopped short: he had not meant to speak of his love for her, only to urge her to make that effort over her languor and her indifference which the great physician said she must make before her health could be restored. Nan lay looking at him, the tears drying on her pale cheeks, her lips parted, her eyes unusually bright; but she did not speak.
"If there was anything I could do to please you," her husband went on in a quieter tone, "I would do it. Would you care, for instance, to live abroad? Burrows recommends a bracing air. If you would go with me to Norway or Switzerland—at once; and then pass the winter at Davos, or any place you liked; perhaps you would care for that? Is there nothing you would like to do? You used to say you wanted to see India——"