She replied, gravely, “Only what must be. She is beginning to realize what has befallen her. Don't come here. You can do no good. I will run down to you whenever I dare. Give me a nurse to help, this first night.”
He went down and sent into the village for a woman who bore a great name for nursing. Then he wandered about disconsolate.
The leaden hours passed. He went to dress, and discovered Ina Klosking's blood upon his clothes. It shocked him first, and then it melted him: he felt an inexpressible tenderness at sight of it. The blood that had flowed in her veins seemed sacred to him. He folded that suit, and tied it up in a silk handkerchief, and locked it away.
In due course he sat down to dinner—we are all such creatures of habit. There was everything as usual, except the familiar faces. There was the glittering plate on the polished sideboard, the pyramid of flowers surrounded with fruits. There were even chairs at the table, for the servants did not know he was to be quite alone. But he was. One delicate dish after another was brought him, and sent away untasted. Soon after dinner Rhoda Gale came down and told him her patient was in a precarious condition, and she feared fever and delirium. She begged him to send one servant up to the farm for certain medicaments she had there, and another to the chemist at Taddington. These were dispatched on swift horses, and both were back in half an hour.
By-and-by Fanny Dover came down to him, with red eyes, and brought him Zoe's love. “But,” said she, “don't ask her to come down. She is ashamed to look anybody in the face, poor girl.”
“Why? what has she done?”
“Oh, Harrington, she has made no secret of her affection; and now, at sight of that woman, he has abandoned her.”
“Tell her I love her more than I ever did, and respect her more. Where is her pride?”
“Pride! she is full of it; and it will help her—by-and-by. But she has a bitter time to go through first. You don't know how she loves him.”
“What! love him still, after what he has done?”