CHAPTER XLVI.
after office hours.
ext day our doctor called. He was very kind. He had made mamma many visits, and attended me through my tedious fever, and would never take a fee after the first one. I daresay that other great London physicians, whom the world reputes worldly, often do similar charities by stealth. My own experience is that affliction like ours does not lower the sufferer's estimate of human nature. It is a great discriminator of character, and sifts men like wheat. Those among our friends who are all chaff it blows away altogether; those who have noble attributes, it leaves all noble. There is no more petulance, no more hurry or carelessness; we meet, in after-contact with them, be it much or little, only the finer attributes, gentleness, tenderness, respect, patience.
I do not remember one of those who had known us in better days, among the very few who now knew where to find us, who did not show us even more kindness than they could have had opportunity of showing if we had been in our former position. Who could be kinder than Mr. Forrester? Who more thoughtful than Mr. Carmel, to whom at length we had traced the flowers, and the books, and the piano, that were such a resource to me; and who had, during my illness, come every day to see mamma?
In his necessarily brief visits, Sir Jacob Lake was energetic and cheery; there was in his manner that which inspired confidence; but I fancied this day, as he was taking his leave of mamma, that I observed something like a shadow on his face, a transitory melancholy, that alarmed me. I accompanied him downstairs, and he stopped for a moment in the lobby outside the drawing-room.
"Has there been anything done since about that place—Malory, I think you call it?" he asked.
"No," I answered; "there is not the least chance. Sir Harry Rokestone is going to sell it, Mr. Jarlcot says; just through hatred of us, he thinks. He's an old enemy of ours; he says he hates our very name; and he won't write; he hasn't answered a single letter of Mr. Forrester's."
"I was only going to say that it wouldn't do; she could not bear so long a journey just now. I think she had better make no effort; she must not leave this at present."