'I solemnly claim from you, Mr Naird,' she cried, 'the same undisguised sincerity that you have just practised with Mrs Maple.' Then, fixing her eyes upon his face, with investigating severity, 'Tell me,' she continued, 'in one word, whether you think I have strength yet left to reach Cavendish Square?'
'If you go in a litter, Madam, and take a week to make the journey—'
'A week?—I would arrive there in a few hours!—Is that impossible?'
'To arrive?—no; to arrive is certainly—not impossible.'
'Dead, you perhaps mean?—To arrive dead is not impossible?—Speak clearly!'
'A medical man, Madam, lives in a constant round of perplexity; for either he must risk killing his patients by telling them unpleasant truths; or letting them kill themselves by nourishing false hopes.'
'Take some other time for bewailing your own difficulties, Sir! and speak to the point, without that hateful official cant.'
'Well, Madam, if nothing but rough honesty will satisfy you, bear it, at least, with fortitude. The motion of a carriage is so likely to open your wound, that, in all probability, before you could gain Cuckfield—or Reigate, at furthest,—'
He stopt. Elinor finished for him: 'I should be no more?'
He was silent.