"I do."
"Why, when I saw you at dusk, you told me she was sleeping comfortably!" said the surgeon, staring at Dr. Rane. "Phillis also said it."
"And so she was. She was to all appearance. Heaven is my witness that I thought and believed the sleep then to be natural, and was refreshing her. She must have died in it. I went up now, and found her--found her--gone."
Oliver Rane put his arm on Mr. Seeley's counter and bent his face to hide his emotion. The surgeon in the midst of his surprise, had hardly ever felt so sorry for any one as he felt in that moment for his brother practitioner.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
WHAT JELLY SAW
"It was too true; Mrs. Rane was dead," said sympathizing people one to the other; for even that same night the sad tidings went partially out to Dallory. What with the death of Hepburn the undertaker, and now the doctor's wife--both prominent people, as might be said, in connection with the sickness--something like consternation fell on those who heard it. Dr. Rane carried the news himself to Dallory Hall, catching Mr. North just as he was going to bed, and imparting it to him in the most gentle and soothing manner in his power. Fearing that if left until morning, it might reach him abruptly, the doctor had thus made haste. From thence he went on to Hepburn's. He had chanced to meet Francis Dallory in coming out of Seeley's; he met some one else he knew; these carried the tidings to others; so that many heard of it that night.
But now we come to a strange and singular thing that happened to Jelly. Jelly in her tart way was sufficiently good-hearted. There was sickness in Ketler's house: the wife had her three days' old infant: the little girl, Cissy, grew worse and weaker: and Jelly chose to sacrifice an afternoon to nursing them. Much as she disapproved of the man's joining the Trades' Union and upholding the strike, often as she had assured him that both starving and the workhouse, whichever he might prefer, were too good for him, now that misfortune lay upon the house, Jelly came-to a little. Susan Ketler was her cousin; and, after all, she was not to blame for her husband's wrong doings. Accordingly, in the afternoon of the last day of Mrs. Rane's illness, Jelly went forth to Ketler's, armed with some beef-tea, and a few scraps for the half-famished children, the whole enclosed in a reticule.
"I shall take the latch-key," she said, in starting, to the cook, who was commonly called Dinah, "so you can go to bed. If Susan Ketler's very ill I shall stop late. Mind you put a box of matches on the slab in the hall."
Susan Ketler was not very ill, Jelly found; but the child, Cissy, was. So ill, that Jelly hardly knew whether to leave her at all, or not. The mother could not attend to her; Ketler had gone tramping off beyond Whitborough after Union work, and had not returned. Only that she thought Mrs. Cumberland would not be pleased if she came to hear that Jelly, the confidential servant in charge, had stayed out for a night, leaving the house with only the cook in it, she had certainly remained. At past twelve poor Ketler arrived home, dead beat, sick, faint, having walked several miles without food. Jelly blew him up a little: she considered that the man who could refuse work when his children were starving, because he belonged to the Trades' Union, deserved nothing but blowing-up: bade him look to Cissy, told him ungraciously that there was a loaf in the pan, and departed. Ketler, ready to drop though he was, civilly offered to see her home; but all the thanks he received in return, was a recommendation to attend to his own concerns and not to meddle with hers.