In one corner there were a pile of empty boxes, and on one of these Mr. Jardine's eye lighted instantly, on account of its resemblance to a wine merchant's case.
He pulled this box out from the others—a plain deal box, roughly finished, just the size of a two-dozen case. One label had been pulled off, but there was a railway label which gave the date of delivery, just three weeks back.
'Have you any idea what this box contained?' inquired Mr. Jardine.
'No, sir. It was here when I came, just as you see it now.'
'It looks very like a wine merchant's box.'
'Well, it might be a wine-case, sir, as far as the look of it goes; but it might have held anything. It was empty when I came here, and there's no stowage for wine bottles in these rooms, as you have seen with your own eyes.'
'Don't be too sure of that; and now go back to your patient, and get him to eat some breakfast, if you can, while I go downstairs.'
'He can't eat, sir. It's pitiful; he don't eat enough, for a robin. We try to keep up his strength with strong soups, and such like; but it's hard work to get him to swallow anything.'
Mr. Jardine went down to the family breakfast room, where his wife, Ida, and her stepmother were sitting at table, with pale perturbed faces, and very little inclination for that excellent fare which the Wimperfield housekeeper provided with a kind of automatic regularity, and would have continued to provide on the eve of a deluge or an earthquake. He told Ida that all was going on quietly upstairs, and that he would share Towler's task as nurse all that day, so that she might be quite easy in her mind as to the patient. And then the servants came trooping in, as the clock struck nine, and they all knelt down, and John Jardine read the daily portion of prayer and praise.
It had been decreed by medical authority that on this day, provided the sky were propitious and the wind in a warm quarter, Vernon was to go out for his first drive. Mr. Jardine accordingly entreated that the three ladies would accompany him, and that Ida would have no fear as to her husband's welfare during her absence.