George’s entrance brought with it a waft of breezy health, and a show of bodily vigour pleasant and refreshing to the heart of the invalid. Kindness shone in his eyes, and his large, handsome hand was out as usual while he was yet yards away. It swallowed up that of poor Leopold, and held it fast.
“Come, come, old fellow! What’s the meaning of this?” he said right cheerily. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself—lying in bed like this in such weather! Why ain’t you riding in the park with Helen, instead of moping in this dark room? You’ll be as blind as the fish in the cave of Kentucky if you don’t get out of this directly! We must see what we can do to get you up!”
He glanced round the room, saw that Helen had left it, and changed his tone to a lower and serious one:
“I say, my boy, you must have been playing old Harry with your constitution to bring yourself to such a pass! By Jove! this will never do! You must turn over a new leaf, you know. That sort of thing never pays. The game’s not worth the candle. Why, you’ve been at death’s door, and life’s not so long that you can afford to play ducks and drakes with it.”
Thus he talked, in expostulatory rattle, the very high-priest of social morality, for some, time before Leopold could get a word in. But when he did, it turned the current into quite another channel.
An hour passed, and George reappeared in the drawing-room, where Helen was waiting for him. He looked very grave.
“I fear matters are worse with poor Leopold than I had imagined,” he said.
Helen gave a sad nod of acquiescence.
“He’s quite off his head,” continued George, “—telling me such an awful cock-and-bull story with the greatest gravity! He WILL have it that he is a murderer—the murderer of that very girl I was telling you about, you remember,—”
“Yes, yes! I know,” said Helen, as a faint gleam of reviving hope shot up from below her horizon. George took the whole thing for a sick fancy, and who was likely to know better than he—a lawyer, and skilled in evidence? Not a word would she say to interfere with such an opinion!