You might have heard the ticking of his watch as he stood there and gazed in the face of the patient, while Mrs. Weston and Mr. Brunton and Charles Hardy waited motionless, almost breathless, to hear his verdict.
"It is a more serious case than I imagined at first," said the doctor; "I do not wish unnecessarily to alarm you, but it is my duty to say that the condition of the patient is one of great danger, but I trust not past recovery."
"What is the nature of the illness—tell me candidly?" asked Mr. Brunton, when he could command speech.
"Brain fever," was the laconic answer.
For a long time George Weston lay in that awful state which is neither death nor life—when the spirit seems to be hovering round the body, uncertain whether to wing its flight for ever from the tenement of earth, or return to sojourn still longer in its old familiar dwelling-house. Sometimes he would rave in the frenzy of madness, and then sink in exhaustion with scarcely the power to draw a breath.
Never was a sick-bed tended with greater care than his. Night after night Mrs. Weston sat beside him, bathing the fevered head and cooling the parched lips. Nor would she leave that post for a moment, until Mr. Brunton was obliged to insist upon her taking rest.
"Reserve your strength," he said; "we know not what is before us; it may be—but we have nothing to do with the future," he added, interrupting himself; "that must be left in His hands."
Hardy was not able to remain in Plymouth longer than Wednesday. Mr. Compton had written to him to say that, being short of hands, he was very much pressed in business, and now that the main object of his journey had been attained—for Mr. Brunton communicated with him almost immediately—he should be glad if he would return as soon as possible.
As he stood beside the bed of George Weston on the morning of his departure, and gazed into those pale and haggard features, which had always beamed with a friendly smile for him, but which he might never see again, he could not restrain the impulse of clasping his hand, and uttering solemnly the prayerful wish, "God preserve and bless you, George!"
The words were not heard by George—his ears were closed in dull insensibility—but they were caught by Mr. Brunton and Mrs. Weston, who that moment entered the room, and Hardy was startled to hear the earnest response to his prayer in their united "Amen!"