“I shouldn’t recommend you to consider the idea of change quite at once,” the old doctor observed cautiously. “You see, Miss Lisle has been a good deal about among the cottages, and——”
“All the more reason for her needing change!”
“Yes—yes; but that cottage where she held her meeting for the women was, I regret to say, in a most unhealthy condition, owing to defective drains, and——”
“I know; it was one I had marked to be pulled down!”
“Miss Lisle was in it for two hours twice a week, and oftener when that poor woman first fell ill,” the doctor persisted, as though his keen old eyes failed to see that the subject of the neglected cottages was a very sore one to their owner. He hated himself, as he saw how the thin face flushed beneath his words, but something had to be said, and he said it.
“So I should not recommend your worrying over sending Miss Lisle away from home at present.”
“What do you mean?” St. Quentin had turned upon him like a flash and caught his hand as in a vice. “What is it? Don’t say the child is ill! Good heavens! not the fever!”
“Remember, she will have every possible advantage,” the old doctor faltered, “every chance that anybody could have of complete recovery. There is no need to be at all despondent, but I fear—don’t agitate yourself—I fear we must not deceive ourselves into the belief that she is going to escape the fever.”
Ten long days had gone by—the longest, Mr. Fenton thought, that he had ever known.