“How is she?” said the latter. “Ah, poor girl, she is very ill!”
“But she will get better? Oh, Stonor, don’t flatter me: tell me the truth!”
“Tell you the truth?—of course I shall! Well, she’ll be better when she gets back to her husband.”
“And how is John Huish?” and the white hand trembled inside the panel, like some leaf agitated by the wind.
“He is bad—very bad,” said the doctor. “I’ve had a hard fight with him, for his brain has had some serious shock. Poor fellow! he has been a little queer in the head for some time past, and consulted me at intervals, but I could make nothing of it. It’s a very obscure case, and I would not—I could not believe that there was anything more than fancy in his symptoms. But he was right, and it seems like a lesson to me not to be too conceited. His mind has been very impressionable, and from what I can gather he has not been carrying on as he should.”
“No, no, I’m afraid not!”
“There was some sad scene with his young wife, I suppose.”
(Text on pages 164 and 165 missing.)
“Well, I always think that it was a very insane, morbid proceeding, tinged with vanity, to shut yourself up as you have done these thirty years.”
“I took an oath, when I found to what I was reduced, that I would never look upon the face of man again, and I have kept it.”