The doctor now followed Belinda, and satisfied himself by ocular demonstration, that this cabinet was the retirement of disease, and not of pleasure.
It was about eight o’clock in the morning when Dr. X—— got home; he found Clarence Hervey waiting for him. Clarence seemed to be in great agitation, though he endeavoured, with all the power which he possessed over himself, to suppress his emotion.
“You have been to see Lady Delacour,” said he, calmly: “is she much hurt?—It was a terrible accident.”
“She has been much hurt,” said Dr. X——, “and she has been for some hours delirious; but ask me no more questions now, for I am asleep, and must go to bed, unless you have any thing to say that can waken me: you look as if some great misfortune had befallen you; what is the matter?”
“Oh, my dear friend,” said Hervey, taking his hand, “do not jest with me; I am not able to bear your raillery in my present temper—in one word, I fear that Belinda is unworthy of my esteem: I can tell you no more, except that I am more miserable than I thought any woman could make me.”
“You are in a prodigious hurry to be miserable,” said Dr. X——. “Upon my word I think you would make a mighty pretty hero in a novel; you take things very properly for granted, and, stretched out upon that sofa, you act the distracted lover vastly well—and to complete the matter, you cannot tell me why you are more miserable than ever man or hero was before. I must tell you, then, that you have still more cause for jealousy than you suspect. Ay, start—every jealous man starts at the sound of the word jealousy—a certain symptom this of the disease.”
“You mistake me,” cried Clarence Hervey; “no man is less disposed to jealousy than I am—but——”
“But your mistress—no, not your mistress, for you have never yet declared to her your attachment—but the lady you admire will not let a drunken man unlock a door, and you immediately suppose—”
“She has mentioned the circumstance to you!” exclaimed Hervey, in a joyful tone: “then she must be innocent.”
“Admirable reasoning!—I was going to have told you just now, if you would have suffered me to speak connectedly, that you have more reason for jealousy than you suspect, for Miss Portman has actually unlocked for me—for me! look at me—the door, the mysterious door—and whilst I live, and whilst she lives, we can neither of us ever tell you the cause of the mystery. All I can tell you is, that no lover is in the case, upon my honour—and now, if you should ever mistake curiosity in your own mind for jealousy, expect no pity from me.”