Olivia looked up at him and smiled. Her smile was the strangest he had ever seen upon a woman's face.
"I am very sorry to hear it. What has been the matter with you?"
"Slow fever, Mr. Weston said."
"Mr. Weston?"
"Yes; Mr. Marchmont's brother–in–law. He has succeeded to Mr. Dawnfield's practice at Kemberling. He attended me, and he attended my step–daughter."
"My wife was ill, then?"
"Yes; she had brain–fever: she recovered from that, but she did not recover strength. Her low spirits alarmed me, and I considered it only right––Mr. Marchmont suggested also––that a medical man should be consulted."
"And what did this man, this Mr. Weston, say?"
"Very little; there was nothing the matter with Mary, he said. He gave her a little medicine, but only in the desire of strengthening her nervous system. He could give her no medicine that would have any very good effect upon her spirits, while she chose to keep herself obstinately apart from every one."
The young man's head sank upon his breast. The image of his desolate young wife arose before him; the image of a pale, sorrowful girl, holding herself apart from her persecutors, abandoned, lonely, despairing. Why had she remained at Marchmont Towers? Why had she ever consented to go there, when she had again and again expressed such terror of her stepmother? Why had she not rather followed her husband down to Devonshire, and thrown herself upon his relatives for protection? Was it like this girl to remain quietly here in Lincolnshire, when the man she loved with such innocent devotion was lying between life and death in the west?