Was it an implied promise? meant to be so understood? Mrs. Knox took it for one. She came out of her dumps, and felt exalted to the seventh heaven.
Meanwhile, Arnold Knox was with Lady Jenkins, to whom he had gone on quitting his step-mother. The old lady, up and dressed, sat in her dining-room. There appeared to be no change in her condition: drowsy, lethargic, gentle, yielding; imbecile, or not many shades removed from it. And yet, neither Dr. Knox nor his fellow-practitioner could see any cause to account for this. Of bodily illness she had none: except that she seemed feeble.
“I wish you would tell me what it is you are taking,” said Dr. Knox, bending over her and speaking in low, persuasive tones. “I fear that you are taking something that does you harm.”
Lady Jenkins looked up at him, apparently trying to consider. “I’ve not had anything since I took the physic,” she said.
“What physic?”
“The bottles that Mr. Tamlyn sent me.”
“But that was when you were ill. Are you sure you have not taken anything else?—that you are not taking anything? Any”—he dropped his voice to a still lower key—“opiates? Laudanum, for instance?”
Lady Jenkins shook her head. “I never took any sort of opiate in my life.”
“Then it is being given to her without her knowledge,” mentally decided the doctor. “I hear you were at the next door last night, as gay as the best of them,” he resumed aloud, changing his tone to a light one.
“Ay. I put on my new bronze satin gown: Patty said I was to. Janet sang her pretty songs.”