He became silent, and so did Phœbe. She had been too much overset to look the subject fairly in the face, and his very calmness of voice and the absence of abusive epithets were a token that he was perfectly appalled at what he had brought on his sisters. They both sat still some minutes, when she saw him lean back with his hand to his head, and his eyes closed. ‘There’s a steeple chase!’ he said, as Phœbe laid her cool hand on his burning brow, and felt the throbbing of the swollen veins of his temples. Both knew that this meant cupping, and they sent in haste for the Hiltonbury doctor, but he was out for the day, and would not return till evening. Phœbe felt dull and stunned, as if her decision had caused all the mischief, and more and more were following on, and her spirit almost died within her at Mervyn’s interjection of rage and suffering.
‘Though they curse, yet bless thou,’ had of necessity been her rule while clinging to this brother; a mental ejaculation had become habitual, and this time it brought reaction from her forlorn despondency. She could do something. Twice she had assisted in cupping, and she believed she could perform the
operation. No failure could be as hurtful as delay, and she offered to make the attempt. Mervyn growled at her folly, yawned, groaned, looked at his watch, counted the heavy hours, and supposed she must do as she chose.
Her heart rivalled his temples in palpitation, but happily without affecting eye, voice, or hand, and with Lieschen’s help the deed was successfully done, almost with equal benefit to the operator and the patient.
Success had put new life into her; the troubles had been forgotten for the moment, and recurred not as a shameful burthen, caused by her own imprudence, but as a possible turning-point, a subject for action, not for despair, and Phœbe was herself again.
‘What’s that you are writing?’ asked Mervyn, starting from a doze on the sofa.
‘A letter to Robert,’ she answered reluctantly.
‘I suppose you will put it in the Times. No woman can keep a thing to herself.’
‘I would tell no one else, but I wanted his advice.’
‘Oh, I dare say.’