That was Mr. Goff’s advice on the first day, but, just to please old Marks and to make a show for his fee, he sent a tonic for Bess to take.
He called again and again, and each time he was more desirous that Bess should be got away.
He told her father plainly what was the matter. Her great trouble, whatever it was, had completely shattered her strength, and there was a danger that if she brooded on it much more her mind might suffer.
There was a look in her eyes that frightened him.
One day Marks told the doctor their history. It was necessary he should know it, for Bess’s condition was becoming alarming.
The terrible sentence pronounced on her husband, the thought of his awful fate, and the long, weary years of separation, had crushed her gentle, loving heart. It seemed as though the thread of her life had been suddenly snapped. She was like the sweet meadowland flower, which, crushed in its beauty by the heel of some passing hind, never lifts its head to the sun again, but slowly withers and dies.
It was after one of his short visits that Mr. Goff put the case plainly to Marks.
‘Look here, my good fellow,’ he said; ‘I’m not coming here to rob you any more. Take her away from London at once. Get to the sea, and let her have the air as much as you can. If you can’t afford it, or won’t do it, the end isn’t far off.’
‘You don’t think she will die?’ asked Marks, in an agonized tone, clutching the doctor’s arm.
‘If she’s got a good constitution she will not die. The mind will go before the body. It’s seaside or lunatic asylum—which you like.’