“Promptness in this matter will greatly oblige me, and I wish to spare no expense in contributing to the comfort and restoration of the sufferer. As I am utterly unknown to you, I prefer to place in your hands a sufficient amount to defray all incidental expenditures.”
She laid a roll of bills upon the table, and as Dr. Clingman counted them, she added,—
“It is possible that I may be attacked by this disease, though I have been repeatedly vaccinated; and if I should die, please recollect that you will find in my purse a memorandum of the disposition I wish made of my body,—also the address of my agent and banker in New York City.”
With mingled curiosity and admiration the physician looked at the pale, handsome woman, who spoke of death as coldly 430 and unconcernedly as of to-morrow’s sun, or next month’s moon.
“Madam, allow me to ask if you have no friends in this city,—no relatives nearer than New York?”
“None, sir. It is my wish that our conversation should be confined to the symptoms and treatment of your patient.”
Dr. Clingman bowed, and, after writing minute instructions upon a sheet of paper left on the mantelpiece, took his departure.
Securing the door on the inside, Mrs. Carlyle threw aside her bonnet and wrappings, and came back to the sufferer on the bed.
Eight years of reckless excess and dissipation had obliterated every vestige of manly beauty from features that disease now rendered loathsome, and the curling hair and long beard were unkempt and grizzled.
Leaning against the pillow, the lonely woman bent over to scrutinize the distorted, burning face, and softly took into her cool palms one hot and swollen hand, which in other days she had admiringly stroked, and tenderly pressed against her cheek and lips. How totally unlike that countenance, which, handsome as Apollyon, had looked down at her on her bridal day, and fondly whispered—“my wife.”