There is something always melancholy in entering a sick-room in the early morning, even when it is to see returning health coming back into a cheek we love. The cheerful light of the young day, finding its way through the chinks of the shutters, and mingling with the faint but inextinguishable glare of the night-lamp, the pale and sleepy guardian of the sick, the book with which she has striven to while away the hours of watching, and scare off sleep, half-open on a table loaded with drugs and fever-cooling drinks, the warm, close atmosphere, and the drawn curtains, all bring home to our own hearts that painful conviction of our weak and fragile tenure upon health and comfort, and all that makes life pleasant, which we forget in the bright and hopeful light of day.
In the small dressing-room, through which Manners ducted to the chamber of his friend, he found a surgeon who had been brought from London, and who had passed the preceding night in close attendance upon the patient. He was luckily one of those men who can form an opinion, and will venture to speak it; and in answer to Colonel Manners's inquiries respecting De Vaux's real situation he replied at once, "There is no danger, sir. He will do perfectly well. I should advise, however, as little conversation as possible, and that of as cheerful a kind as may be, for it may retard recovery, if it do not produce more serious evil."
Manners promised to observe his caution, and entered the room. De Vaux smiled faintly when he saw him, and held out his hand, though he moved with evident pain.
"This is a sad accident, indeed, De Vaux," said Manners, sitting down by his bedside; "but I am delighted to hear from the surgeon that it is likely to have no bad consequences, and to be speedily remedied."
"I should be ungrateful to say that I am sorry he thinks so," answered De Vaux, in a melancholy tone; "and yet I can hardly make up my mind to rejoice."
"Nay, nay," said Manners, "I will not hear you say so, my friend. You can have heard no tidings, you can be placed in no situation, De Vaux, which should make you forget that you are surrounded by people who love you for yourself, and are worthy of your love--who would love you still, under all or any circumstances--that you have friends, relations, ties of every dear and intimate character that can make health and life a blessing, if you are willing to receive it as such. Nor should you forget that there are others who may well be dear to your heart, and whose whole happiness for life is staked upon yours."
"Oh yes, poor Marian," said De Vaux: "I am, indeed, ungrateful; for such a treasure as that should compensate for everything. But tell me how she is. Tell me all about her, Manners. When did she hear of this accident? and how has she borne it?"
Manners, though it can scarcely be said that he was puzzled how to answer, yet felt that, with a man of De Vaux's character, it was somewhat a delicate task, especially as, from what the surgeon had said, it might be expedient not to tell his friend the full extent of what Marian had suffered. He was too well aware of De Vaux's fastidiousness not to let him know that Marian had felt as deeply on his account as he could possibly think she ought to have done; and yet Manners did not wish to pain and alarm him by telling him how much she really had undergone.
"You ask me to tell you a long story, De Vaux," he answered, after a moment's thought, "longer, I am afraid, than your worthy surgeon will consent to your hearing at present; but the truth is, in consequence of some other accident or mistake, we never did hear of what had occurred to you at all."
"Good God!" cried De Vaux, "when with my own hand I wrote to Marian as much as I could write. I do think that servants and messengers were made for the very purpose of breaking people's hearts, or teasing them to death by carelessness."