“Not worse, Mr Lambent?” cried Mrs Thorne piteously. “Don’t say she’s worse!”
There was a painful silence, and then the vicar sighed heavily as he said—
“Her state is very dangerous indeed.”
Chapter Forty Five.
A Breach of Promise of Marriage.
Hazel seemed to have borne the moving well, and the doctor smiled his satisfaction at seeing his patient in such light and cheerful quarters; but the days had gone on without change. Night and day there had been the same weary, restless wandering of the fevered brain—the same constant talking of the troubles of the past; and little Miss Burge sobbed aloud sometimes as she listened to some of the revelations of Hazel’s breast.
“Poor dear!” she said, and she strove to give the sufferer the rest and ease that would not come, as hour by hour she watched the terrible inroads the fever made in her care-worn face.
“She’s getting that thin, doctor, it’s quite pitiful,” she said; but only to receive the same answer.