“That I just will,” cried the man, giving one glance at the figure at his mistress’s feet, and the next moment he was in the kitchen. “Here, rouse up!” he cried, “’tain’t nothing sooper—”
Edward said “natural” as he ran out, hatless, into the frosty night to fetch the doctor, tying his handkerchief round his head as he sped on.
Meanwhile, Mrs Brandon lifted the wasted form in her arms, and bore it to a couch, where she strove ineffectually to restore animation. Everything she tried seemed useless; and at last, weeping bitterly, she sank upon her knees, and clasped the fragile figure to her heart, moaning as she did so:
“My poor stricken bird! my poor little dove! what does it mean—what does it mean?”
But the form she clasped might have been that from which the vital spark had just fled, save that the icy coldness began gradually to yield to the temperature of the room.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Two.
Light!—and Darkness?
Dr Tiddson at last, panting and out of breath; for he had run the greater part of two miles, and upon hearing the few words Mrs Brandon had to utter, he cast aside all the pedantry of his profession to which he clung, and knelt down by the inanimate form.