"Come, come, you must not give way, my good friend; while there's life there's hope, you know; and what is very dreadful and hopeless to an unprofessional eye has a very different aspect frequently to those who have studied these diseases. I think Captain Kilsyth came here to prepare Mrs. Caird for my visit?"
"O yes, she expects you. She was greatly excited at first; so much so that we were afraid she would do herself harm; but I think she is calmer now."
"Then perhaps I had better go to her at once. It is always desirable in these cases as much as possible to avoid suspense. Will you show me the way?"
They went upstairs together; and when they arrived at the room, Kilsyth opened the door, and left Wilmot to enter by himself. As the door closed behind him, he looked up, and saw the woman whom he had loved with such devotion and yet with such bitter regret. She was lying on a sofa drawn across the window, propped up by pillows. She turned round at the noise of his entrance; and as soon as she recognised her visitor, her cheeks flushed to the deepest crimson. Wilmot advanced rapidly, with as cheerful a smile as he could assume, and took her hand--her hot, wasted, and trembling hand--within both of his. She was dreadfully changed--he saw that in an instant. There were deep hollows in her cheeks, and round her blue eyes, which were now feverishly bright and lustrous, there were large bistre circles. She wore a white dressing-gown trimmed with blue,--such a one as was associated with his earliest recollections of her; and as he saw her lying back and looking up at him with earnest trusting gaze, he was reminded of the first time he saw her in the fever at Kilsyth, but with O what a difference in his hope of saving her!
"You see I have come back to you, Mrs. Caird," said Wilmot, seating himself by the sofa, but still retaining her hand. "You thought you had got rid of me for ever; but I am like the bottle-imp in the story, impossible to be sent away. Now, own you are surprised to see me!"
"I am not indeed, Dr. Wilmot," Madeleine replied, in a voice the hollow tones of which went to Wilmot's heart. Ah, how unlike the sweet, clear, ringing tones which he so well remembered! "I am not indeed surprised to see you. I had a perfect conviction," she said very calmly, "that I should see you once again. At that time--at Kilsyth, you remember--I thought I was going to die, you know; and when I knew I should recover, as I lay in a dreamy half-conscious state, I recollect having a presentiment that when I did die you would be near me--that you would stand by my bedside, as you used to do, and--"
"My dearest Mrs. Caird, I cannot listen to you; my--my child, for God's sake don't talk in that way! I used to have to tell you to calm yourself, you know; but now you must rouse up--you must indeed."
"O no, Dr. Wilmot; not rouse myself to any action, not wake up again to the dreary struggle of life! O no; let me sink quietly into my grave, but--"
His hand trembled with emotion as he laid his finger lightly on her lip, and his voice was choked and husky as he said: "I must insist! You used to obey me implicitly, you recollect; and you must show that you have not forgotten your old ways. And now tell me all about yourself."
Half an hour afterwards, as Wilmot was descending the stairs, he met Kilsyth at the drawing-room door, with haggard looks and trembling hands, waiting for him. They went into the drawing-room together; and the old man, carefully closing the door behind him, turned to his friend, and said in broken accents; "Well, what do you say? what--what do you think?"