Chapter Fifty Nine.
Was there ever seen such villany,
So neatly plotted, and so well performed,
Both held in hand, and flatly both beguiled?
Jew of Malta.
The feelings of Rainscourt were worked up to desperation and madness. As soon as the party had quitted the room, he paced up and down, clenching his fists and throwing them in the air, as his blood boiled against McElvina, whom he considered as his mortal enemy. To send him a challenge, with the double view of removing him and his testimony, and at the same time of glutting his own revenge, was the idea that floated uppermost in his confused and heated brain. To surrender up the estates—to be liable for the personal property which he had squandered—to sink at once from affluence to absolute pauperism, if not to incarceration,—it was impossible. He continued his rapid movement to and fro, dividing his thoughts between revenge and suicide, when a tap at the door roused him from his gloomy reveries. It was the surgeon who attended Seymour; he came to pay his respects, and make a report of his patient’s health to Rainscourt, whom he had not seen since his return to the castle.
“Your most obedient, sir. I am sorry that my patient was not so well when I saw him this morning. I hope to find him better when I go upstairs.”
“Oh!” replied Rainscourt, a faint gleam of deliverance from his dilemmas shining upon his dark and troubled mind.
“Yes, indeed,” replied the medical gentleman, who, like many others, made the most of his cases, to enhance the value of his services; like Tom Thumb, who “made the giants first, and then killed them,”—“a great deal of fever, indeed—I do not like the symptoms. But we must see what we can do.”
“Do you think that there is any chance of his not recovering?” asked Rainscourt, with emphasis.
“It’s hard to say, sir; many much worse have recovered, and many not so ill have been taken off. If the fever abates, all will go well—if it does not, we must hope for the best,” replied the surgeon, shrugging up his shoulders.