"But he cannot harm you now. I don't ask you to go in to him one day after he is well again—if he recovers. Neither need you be with him as a regular nurse: only step in now and then to give him his physic, or change the wet cloths on his burning head."
Mrs. Jones found her voice. The enormous impudence of the surgeon's request had caused its temporary extinction.
"I'd see Pike in his coffin before I'd go a-nigh him as a nurse! What on earth will you be asking next, Mr. Hillary?"
"I didn't ask you, Mrs. Jones: you have your children to attend to; full employment for one pair of arms. Mrs. Gum has nothing to do with her time; and is near at hand besides. Gum, you stand in your place by Dr. Ashton every Sunday, and read out to us of the loving mercy of God: will you urge your wife to this little work of charity for His sake?"
Jabez Gum evidently did not know what to answer. On the one hand, he could hardly go against the precepts he had to respond to as clerk; on the other, there was his scorn and hatred of the disreputable Arab.
"He's such a loose character, sir," he debated at length.
"Possibly: when he is well. But he is ill now, and could not be loose if he tried. Some one must go in now and then to see after him: it struck me that perhaps your wife would do it, for humanity's sake; and I thought I'd ask her before going further."
"She can do as she likes," said Jabez.
Mrs. Gum—as unresisting in her nature as ever was Percival Elster—yielded to the prayer of the surgeon, and said she would do what she could. But she had never shown more nervousness over anything than she was showing as she gave her answer.
"Then I will step indoors and give you a few plain directions," said the surgeon. "Mrs. Jones has taken her departure, I perceive."