The landlady shook her head in melancholy assent.
‘Now look here, my good soul,’ said Gerard seriously. ‘If you want to get well, you mustn’t sleep in that kennel of yours down below.’
‘Kennel!’ cried the outraged matron, ‘kennel, Mr. Gerard! Why, you might eat your dinner off the floor.’
‘I dare say you might; but every breath you draw there is tainted more or less with sewer gas. That furred tongue of yours looks rather like blood-poisoning. You must make yourself up a comfortable bed on the first floor, and keep a nice little bit of fire in your room day and night.’
‘Not in her room, Mr. Gerard,’ exclaimed Mrs. Evitt, with a shudder. ‘I couldn’t do it, sir. It isn’t like as if I was a stranger. Strangers wouldn’t feel it. But I knew her. I should see her beautiful eyes glaring at me all night long. It would be the death of me.’
‘Well, then, there’s Desrolles’ room. You can’t have any objection to that.’
Mrs. Evitt shuddered again.
‘I’m that nervous,’ she said, ‘that my mind’s set against those upstairs rooms.’
‘You’ll never get well downstairs. If you don’t fancy that first-floor bedroom you can make yourself up a bed in the sitting-room. There’s plenty of light and air there.’
‘I might do that,’ said Mrs. Evitt, ‘though it goes against me to ’ack my beautiful drawing-room——’