Sir Jekyl, a little more easy in consequence of these manipulations, was lying back on pillows, with that pleasant confidence in his case at which a sanguine man so easily arrives, and already beginning to amuse himself with pictures in the uncertain future. The hospital nurse, sitting by a fire in that dim and faded study which opened from the sick-room, now and then rose, and with soundless steps drew near the half-open door, and sometimes peeped, and sometimes only listened. The patient was quiet. The woman sat down in that drowsy light, and ruminated, looking into the fire, with her feet on the fender, and a good deal of stocking disclosed; when, all on a sudden, she heard a rustling of a loose dress near her, and looking over her shoulder, surprised, still more so, saw a pale and handsome lady cross the floor from near the window to the door of Sir Jekyl's room, which she closed as she entered it.
With her mouth open, the nurse stood up and gazed in the direction in which she had disappeared. Sir Jekyl, on the other hand, witnessed her entrance with a silent amazement, scarcely less than the nurse's. A few hurried steps brought her to his bedside, and looking down upon him with great agony, and her hands clasped together, she said, with a kind of sob—
"Thank God, thank God!—alive, alive! Oh, Jekyl, what hours of torture!"
"Alive! to be sure I'm alive, little fool!" said the Baronet, with an effort, smiling uncomfortably. "They have not been telling you it's anything serious?"
"They told me nothing. I've heard nothing. I've seen no one but Gwynn. Oh, Jekyl! tell me the truth; what do they say?—there's so much blood on the floor."
"Why, my precious child, don't worry yourself about it; they evidently think it's nothing at all. I know it's nothing, only what they call, just, the muscles—you know—a little sore. I'll be on my legs again in a week."
"I'm going to Wardlock, Jekyl; you'll hear news of me from there."
Had the tone or the look something ineffably ominous? I know not.
"Come, Jennie, none of that," he answered. "No folly. I've behaved very badly. I've been to blame; altogether my fault. Don't tease yourself about what can't be helped. We must not do anything foolish, though. I'm tired of the world; so are you, Jennie; we are both sick of it. If we choose to live out of it, what the plague do we really lose?"
At this moment the nurse, slowly opening the door a little, said, with a look of quiet authority—