“Go into the dining-room and eat some luncheon, you young muff,” was the unsentimental reply; “why, you have not a better friend in the world than I am, or at all events a more sincere one, you stupid boy; but, come along, I’ll send Emily to play hostess, and mind you make her eat well. I know that girl will knock up if she refuses her corn.”
The luncheon passed off pleasantly enough—Emily not being overburthened with shyness, and possessing a flow of animal spirits, which even her anxiety for her sister could not wholly overcome, chatted away so pleasantly, that Lord Alfred caught the infection, and took his share in the conversation with spirit, so that when the meal was over, they parted mutually pleased.
Sir J. C———— arrived true to his appointed time, examined his patient, looked grave, consulted with Dr. Gouger, and then the two medicos summoned Coverdale. As he entered, the physician, who was a tall gaunt man, with a large, sharp nose, raised himself on tiptoe, as if he were trying to fly, then giving it up as hopeless, subsided on his heels again, cleared his throat, stroked his chin, looked at Coverdale as if he wished to feel his pulse or give him a pill, and began in a bland and insinuating tone of voice—
“You are anxious, my dear sir—naturally anxious as to the state in which we (here by a little condescending but patronizing pantomimic action he indicated Gouger) have found Mrs. Coverdale?”
Poor Harry, boiling with anxiety and impatience, shot a “Yes, of course,” at him as if he had been a partridge. In no way disturbed, however, the autocrat of all the pill-boxes continued—
“The duration of your justifiable anxiety, my dear sir, will not be much further prolonged; in less than twelve hours the complaint will have reached its crisis, and the result will not be long in revealing itself to educated eyes.”
“And you think——you feel reason to believe that———the result will be favourable,” stammered Harry, his stalwart frame trembling from head to foot with the emotion he was unable to conceal—“You do not think your patient worse than when you last saw her?”
The physician paused: then replied, gravely—
“It would be mistaken kindness to disguise from you the truth, sir. Mrs. Coverdale is in a most precarious state—her life hangs on a thread; I do not say that she must die, but it is my duty to tell you that it is more than probable that she may do so; the next twelve hours will probably decide the question. She is now apparently sinking into a heavy slumber—from this she may never awake, or it may be succeeded by fits of delirium, from which she would be unable to rally.”
Harry shuddered, then asked—