"Where's Dr. Laken?" asked Emily.
"Gone out," replied Mr. Chandos. "He breakfasted early."
"How unfortunate it is that I should have arrived just now!" she exclaimed, after a pause, during which we were all silent. "The carriages must not go out, I suppose, for the next few days."
"Ill doing is sure to bring its own punishment, Emily," Mr. Chandos said to her, jestingly, with a sad smile. "You should not have run away."
"We shall have Alfred over after me, I expect. His gastric fever will politely vanish when it is necessary that his wife should be looked up. But I am glad that I was here, Harry, after all," she added, her voice changing to one of deep feeling, "for it enabled me to see the last of him."
"I am glad that he was here," observed Mr. Chandos, "for it afforded the opportunity of his receiving comforts and attendance in his illness that he could not have had abroad. Now that the awful dread of his being discovered has passed away, I see how certainly all things were for the best."
"He stayed here a long while this time."
"He was too ill to leave. We could not urge it. The final end seemed rapidly and surely approaching."
"Do you call his illness consumption?"
"Not the consumption that attacks most people. If ever man died of a broken heart, George has."