“You, Pericles!” cried Dr. Galenides, with something like alarm in his voice. “I was on my way to you.”
“Oh, I am much better to-day, and wanted very much to see how this other patient of yours is getting on,” said Selaka, approaching.
“Are you ill, too?” asked Rudolph, excitedly.
“A little unwell, but it is nothing,” answered Selaka, with a smile, as he took Rudolph’s hand and held it.
Dr. Galenides glanced significantly at the baroness, and went away.
Selaka leant across the side of the bed, and looked steadily at Rudolph, over whom the baroness was hovering with maternal attentions. The sick man reached out his hand to take his aunt’s, and held it an instant to his lips.
“Poor fellow! you will be excited in a minute,” said the baroness.
“It is kind of you, Herr Selaka, to come to me,” Rudolph said, in German.
“I am sorry for what has happened,” returned Selaka. “I know nothing more regrettable than the frantic precipitancy and anger of youth. I cannot understand why you should have made a promise you did not consider binding, or why, having made it, you should have broken it. It would not be my place to speak upon a matter so delicate and so private, did I not feel, through a member of my family, partly responsible for your misbehaviour.”