CHAPTER XI.
CONTAINING MORE THAN ANY OTHER CHAPTER IN THE SECOND BOOK OF THIS HISTORY.
MY first proposal was to remove the patient, with all due care and gentleness, to a better lodging, and a district more convenient for the visits of the most eminent physicians. When I expressed this wish to Isora, she looked at me long and wistfully, and then burst into tears. “You will not deceive us,” said she, “and I accept your kindness at once,—from him I rejected the same offer.”
“Him?—of whom speak you?—this Barnard, or rather—but I know him!” A startling expression passed over Isora’s speaking face.
“Know him!” she cried, interrupting me, “you do not,—you cannot!”
“Take courage, dearest Isora,—if I may so dare to call you,—take courage: it is fearful to have a rival in that quarter; but I am prepared for it. This Barnard, tell me again, do you love him?”
“Love—O God, no!”
“What then? do you still fear him?—fear him, too, protected by the unsleeping eye and the vigilant hand of a love like mine?”
“Yes!” she said falteringly, “I fear for you!”
“Me!” I cried, laughing scornfully, “me! nay, dearest, there breathes not that man whom you need fear on my account. But, answer me; is not—”