A momentary pause. “Yes.”
“Oh, dear, I am ill. Hold me!” cried out William, as his head sank to one side, and great drops, as large as peas, broke forth upon his clammy face. It appeared to be one of the temporary faint attacks that overpowered him at times lately, and Lady Isabel rang the bell hastily.
Wilson came in, in answer. Joyce was the usual attendant upon the sick room; but Mrs. Carlyle, with her infant, was passing the day at the Grove; unconscious of the critical state of William, and she had taken Joyce with her. It was the day following the trial. Mr. Justice Hare had been brought to West Lynne in his second attack, and Barbara had gone to see him, to console her mother, and to welcome Richard to his home again. If one carriage drove, that day, to the Grove, with cards and inquiries, fifty did, not to speak of the foot callers. “It is all meant by way of attention to you, Richard,” said gentle Mrs. Hare, smiling through her loving tears at her restored son. Lucy and Archie were dining at Miss Carlyle’s, and Sarah attended little Arthur, leaving Wilson free. She came in, in answer to Madame Vine’s ring.
“Is he off in another faint?” unceremoniously cried she, hastening to the bed.
“I think so. Help to raise him.”
William did not faint. No; the attack was quite different from those he was subject to. Instead of losing consciousness and power, as was customary, he shook as if he had the ague, and laid hold both of Madame Vine and Wilson, grasping them convulsively.
“Don’t let me fall! Don’t let me fall!” he gasped.
“My dear, you cannot fall,” responded Madame Vine. “You forget that you are on the bed.”
He clasped them yet, and trembled still, as from fear. “Don’t let me fall! Don’t let me fall” the incessant burden of his cry.
The paroxysm passed. They wiped his brow, and stood looking at him; Wilson with a pursed up mouth, and a peculiar expression of face. She put a spoonful of restorative jelly between his lips, and he swallowed it, but shook his head when she would have given him another. Turning his face to the pillow, in a few minutes he was in a doze.