“I—oh! very happy—yes—a holiday—certainly,” replied he, like a man whose thoughts were a little scattered, and he stood leaning on the back of a chair, and showing, as both ladies agreed, by his absent manner and pale and saddened countenance, that Vane Trevor had been delivering Doctor Sprague’s message, desiring his presence at the death-bed of the departing baronet.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THEY CONVERSE
“We were discussing a knotty point, Mr. Herbert, when you arrived,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox. “I say that nothing can warrant an agitating intrusion upon a sick bed. Mr. Trevor here was mentioning a case—a patient in a most critical state—who had an unhappy quarrel with his son. The old gentleman, a baronet, is now in a most precarious state.” Miss Clara stole a glance at William, who was bearing it like a brick. “A paralytic stroke; and they talked of sending for his son! Was ever such madness heard of? If they want to kill the old man outright they could not go more direct to their object. I happen to know something of that awful complaint. My darling Clara’s grandfather, my beloved father, was taken in that way—a severe paralytic attack, from which he was slowly recovering, and a servant stupidly dropped a china cup containing my dear father’s gruel, and broke it—a kind of thing which always a little excited him—and not being able to articulate distinctly, or in any way adequately to express his irritation, he had, in about twenty minutes after the occurrence, a second seizure, which quite prostrated him, and in fact he never spoke intelligibly after, nor were we certain that he recognised one of his immediate family. So trifling are the ways, so mysterious—h—hem!—and apparently inadequate the causes, which of course, under Divine regulation, in paralytic affections, invariably overpower the patient. Now, what I say is this, don’t you think a son, in such a case, instead of obtruding himself at the sick man’s bedside, ought to wait quietly for a month or two—quietly, I would say, in France, or wherever he is, and to allow his father just to rally?”
William had been looking rather dreamily on the carpet during this long statement, and I am afraid he had hardly listened to it as closely as he ought, and on being appealed to on the subject he did the best he could, and answered—
“It’s an awful pity these quarrels.”
“He knows something of the case, too,” interposed Vane Trevor.