"Mr Davis, it is rather sudden, as she says. As far as I can see, it is the best as well as the kindest proposal that could have been made; but I think we must give her a little time to think about it."
"Well, twenty-four hours! Will that do?"
Ruth lifted up her head. "Mr Davis, I am not ungrateful because I can't thank you" (she was crying while she spoke); "let me have a fortnight to consider about it. In a fortnight I will make up my mind. Oh, how good you all are!"
"Very well. Then this day fortnight—Thursday the 28th—you will let me know your decision. Mind! if it's against me, I shan't consider it a decision, for I'm determined to carry my point. I'm not going to make Mrs Denbigh blush, Mr Benson, by telling you, in her presence, of all I have observed about her this last three weeks, that has made me sure of the good qualities I shall find in this boy of hers. I was watching her when she little thought it. Do you remember that night when Hector O'Brien was so furiously delirious, Mrs Denbigh?"
Ruth went very white at the remembrance.
"Why now, look there! how pale she is at the very thought of it. And yet, I assure you, she was the one to go up and take the piece of glass from him which he had broken out of the window for the sole purpose of cutting his throat, or the throat of any one else, for that matter. I wish we had some others as brave as she is."
"I thought the great panic was passed away!" said Mr Benson.
"Aye! the general feeling of alarm is much weaker; but, here and there, there are as great fools as ever. Why, when I leave here, I am going to see our precious member, Mr Donne—"
"Mr Donne?" said Ruth.
"Mr Donne, who lies ill at the Queen's—came last week, with the intention of canvassing, but was too much alarmed by what he heard of the fever to set to work; and, in spite of all his precautions, he has taken it; and you should see the terror they are in at the hotel; landlord, landlady, waiters, servants—all; there's not a creature will go near him, if they can help it; and there's only his groom—a lad he saved from drowning, I'm told—to do anything for him. I must get him a proper nurse, somehow or somewhere, for all my being a Cranworth man. Ah, Mr Benson! you don't know the temptations we medical men have. Think, if I allowed your member to die now, as he might very well, if he had no nurse—how famously Mr Cranworth would walk over the course!—Where's Mrs Denbigh gone to? I hope I've not frightened her away by reminding her of Hector O'Brien, and that awful night, when I do assure you she behaved like a heroine!"