She could not make any rejoinder, could not speak, and quitted the room to hide her emotion.
In the after-part of the day the surgeon, Duffham, bustled in. His visit was later than usual.
“And how are you, Sir Geoffry?” he asked, as they sat alone, facing each other between the table and the fire.
“Much the same, Duffham.”
“Look here, Sir Geoffry—you should rally both yourself and your spirits. It’s of no use giving way to illness. There’s a certain listlessness upon you; I’ve seen it for some time. Shake it off.”
“Willingly—if you will give me the power to do so,” was Sir Geoffry’s reply. “The listlessness you speak of proceeds from the fact that my health and energies fail me. As to my spirits, there’s nothing the matter with them.”
Mr. Duffham turned over with his fingers a glass paper-weight that happened to lie on the table, as if he wanted to see the fishing-boats on the sea that its landscape represented, and then he glanced at Sir Geoffry.
“Of course you wish to get well?”—with a slight emphasis on the “wish.”
“Most certainly I wish to get well. For my mother’s sake—and of course also for my wife’s, as well as for my own. I don’t expect to, though, Duffham.”