"What! I? Oh, but I am sometimes very, very wicked, I assure you," replied Miss Gerard. She looked so serious, nay, so sad, that I could have taken up her little hand and kissed it, there and then, to comfort her. But would such a course of conduct assist poor Marmaduke? thought I, and fortunately in time.
"There is one of the Heath family," said I, "at all events, whose good qualities will go far to atone for the shortcomings of his adversaries, if he only lives to exercise them."
That "if he only lives" I considered to be very diplomatic; it was enlisting a tender sympathy for his perilous condition to start with.
"Dr. Sitwell says that there is little danger," replied Miss Gerard, quietly.
"I know better," observed I, confidentially; "his life or death hangs upon a thread, a chance."
"Good heavens! Mr. Meredith, what can you mean? The brain, we are assured, is quite uninjured."
"My dear Miss Gerard," returned I, "it is not his brain that is affected; it is his heart. His recovery, I am positively certain, depends upon you."
"Upon me! Mr. Meredith?" replied she, while a blush sprung from neck to forehead on the instant, as though a white rose should become a red one—"upon me?"
"Yes, dear young lady; that is, upon you and your good father. This lad will find here, for the first time in his young life, peace and tenderness—a new existence, if you only choose, will expand around him, such as he has never even dreamt of. I do not ask you to be kind to him, for you cannot be otherwise than kind; but consider his sad condition—fatherless, motherless, and having for his only relative a wretch whose atrocity is unspeakable, what reason has he to wish for life? But you, you may teach him to feel that existence has something else to offer than sorrow, and shame, and fear."
"Alas, sir! I am nothing," returned Miss Gerard. "But if your friend desire a teacher to whom fear and shame are unknown, and whom sorrow has rendered wise, not sad, he will find one in my dear father. Oh, Mr. Meredith, if you knew him as I know him, how tender he is as well as strong, you would go straight to him! What I have of help within me, if I have anything, is derived from him alone."