"And you love her for your mother's sake, I suppose? Truly filial."
"How is she to-night? Rumours are so unreliable, that I came to you to find out the truth."
"She is going to die, I am afraid."
A sudden pallor overspread Russell's face, but he sat erect and motionless, and, fastening his keen eyes upon him, the doctor added—
"She is about to be transplanted to a better world, if there is such a place. She is too good and pure for this cursed, pestiferous earth."
"Is the case so utterly hopeless? I cannot, I will not, believe it!" came indistinctly from the young man's bloodless lips.
"I tell you I know better! She stands on a hair stretched across her grave. If I don't succeed to-night in making her sleep (which I have been trying to accomplish for two days), she can't possibly live. And what is that whole confounded crew of factory savages in comparison with her precious life?"
"Is it true that her illness is attributable to nursing those people?"
"Yes. D—l take the Row! I wish the river would swallow it up."
"If I could only see her!" exclaimed Russell, and an expression of such intense agony settled on his features, usually so inflexible, that his companion was startled and astonished. The doctor regarded him a moment with perplexity and compassion mingled in his own face; then light broke upon him, and, rising, he laid his hand heavily on Russell's shoulder.