Jack Melland limped off towards the deserted smoking-room. Five minutes before, as he sat resolutely silent, he had determined to go to Mr Farrell as he sat in the library that evening, and, in the quiet of a tête-à-tête, announce his determination to leave the Court before the week was out; but now, once again, circumstances conspired against him. There was a greater question at stake than his own miserable comings or goings, for the shadow of death hovered over the Court, and none could tell what the morning might bring forth.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Mrs Wolff.
The next morning Mr Farrell was reported better, though unable to leave his bed. His old friend, the doctor, had stayed with him for the greater part of the night, and had now taken his departure, pronouncing all immediate danger to be over. A few days’ rest would no doubt make the patient much as he had been before, to outward seeming, though to the professional eye, a little weaker, a little nearer the end.
At breakfast Mrs Wolff fussed in a feeble, self-injured manner because she was not admitted to the sick-room.
“It is so dreadful for him to be left without a woman! I can’t think how he will be nursed without a woman!” she repeated monotonously, while her hearers breathed an earnest wish that, when their turn came to be nursed, it might not be by a woman of her calibre. Mr Farrell was a hundred times better off with his quiet, capable James.
A shadow of depression rested upon all the young people, though Ruth could not help feeling thankful for a reasonable excuse for a sadness which had nothing to do with Uncle Bernard or his health. Now, no one would wonder if she were sad or silent, and she would escape the questioning she had so much dreaded. Immediately breakfast was over she announced her intention of devoting the morning to photography, and disappeared indoors, while Victor took his accustomed path to the stables.
Mollie would have followed her sister, but Jack detained her with an appeal which could not be denied.