"At any rate I'm not going to take any risks."
Rickman pondered that saying for a while. "Do you mean you're not going to let her take any risks?"
Jewdwine said nothing, but endeavoured to express by his manner a certain distaste for the conversation.
("Or does he mean," thought Rickman, "that he won't risk having a delicate wife on his hands?")
"It's not as if I didn't know," he persisted, "I know she—she lies on her back and can't move. Is it her spine?"
"No."
"Or her heart?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Is it something worse?"
Jewdwine was silent.