Until now, he knew not how much he had loved her!
Now, indeed, his passion began to flame with tenfold ardour; and when she no longer visited him in prison as of yore, and sent no word of love or kindness by the much-expected and long looked-for post, he begun to decline in health, and visibly to pine.
“Some enemy has been at work,” thought he.
“I would give untold wealth to have this thing explained! A more true-hearted girl never breathed the breath of life, and I would give ten thousand kingdoms to call her mine!
“She has been faithful to me in all my adversity.
“She, of all I ever knew, is the only one who does not despise me.
“If I live I will make her my wife, or else have none at all, if I could even exist for a thousand years.”
Dame Worthington, and also Sir Richard, visited the prisoner as of yore. They abated nothing of their former kindness—if anything, they loved him all the more—yet Charley’s health visibly declined, nor could his friends imagine the cause thereof.
Mental anxiety had laid him upon an hospital bed, and there he lay for many days.
The good doctor had watched his case with more than ordinary anxiety and care.