'Thank you; it will be your greatest kindness. And one day remember that wish—that one wish. I wanted to wish you good-bye. God bless you. Kiss me once, my sister Gertrude.'
She could not have staid a moment longer than to give and receive that kiss. She almost fled into the room where her wraps were, and there cried as if her heart would break, feeling scarcely able to bear it when Robina came to see whether she had warm things enough.
But Gertrude had a twelve miles' drive with her father, and in it she experienced as never before, the depths of his tenderness and delicacy of his sympathy, and he found what were his once wilful petted child's yearnings towards that lofty noble character just out of reach, yearnings by his own forbearance just not stirred into active conscious love, such as would have left her heart entirely widowed. For in reply to the questions she scarce durst utter, the Doctor declared plainly that his own hope was small, though there still remained the possibility of a turn for the better, and Tom's more modern science might have further resources.
This was what he had left with the family, and most of them turned 'not hopeless' into hopeful, more especially as the most distressing form of suffering had not recurred, though even now Felix begged that Cherry might not see him, and feebly tried to send Wilmet home, but nothing would induce her to leave him. Her whole self seemed bound up in the single thought of ministering to him, and she was almost incapable of attending to remonstrance from husband or doctor on the special risks in her case, as if her strong will had mastered her very understanding, and they feared that to insist might do her more harm than to let her have her way. Clement kept equally close at hand, resolved that she should never be alone with the patient to bear the first brunt of those appalling attacks of suffering, and Angela was never further off than the next room, with the door open.
Those downstairs achieved a conventional cheerfulness. Stella was there in her ordinary black dress, and it was not easy to realize that she was Mrs. Audley, while Charley hung over her, petting her, though very anxious to be useful.
The chief use to which Geraldine wanted to put him or any one else, was to entertain Adrian, who looked as if he thought the illness of the master of the house a special injury and act of inhospitality to himself, and was, besides, much disposed to be rude to Ferdinand.
'Can't you take him into the long room and play billiards?' she asked Bernard.
'You'd hear the balls up in Felix's room. I never saw such a selfish brute.'
Bernard had found his Helot at last. 'Best way would be to get Fulbert to take him somewhere to smoke. I don't suppose he'll go for me.'
The somewhere was Sibby's sitting-room, and when Sir Adrian was carried off, Alda, Geraldine, Ferdinand, and Marilda had rather a comfortable talk over old St Oswald's Buildings days, in which Mr. Audley presently joined them.