The day's rest did her a great deal of good, and she rose on the Monday renovated and refreshed. A wish had come over her that she could see a doctor and learn her fate before she went to her aunt Bettina's. She had not come to town with the intention of consulting any particular surgeon;--indeed she hardly knew the name of one from another. Watton, when sitting with her on the Sunday night, had spoken of a noted surgeon living in Westminster, and Caroline remembered then to have heard Dr. Davenal speak of his skill: and she determined to go to him.
She went up in an early omnibus through the mourning streets. The bells were tolling, the shutters were partially closed, men and women stood in groups to converse, sadness pervading every countenance. The surgeon, Mr. Welch, was at home, but she had to wait her turn to be admitted to him.
He was not in the least like Monsieur Le Bleu, except in one little matter--he wore spectacles. A silent man, who looked more than talked; he bade Mrs. Cray tell her case to him from beginning to end in the best manner she was able, and he never took his spectacles from her face while she was doing so.
What she said necessitated an examination of the side. It could be but a slight one there, dressed as she was, but the surgeon appeared to form a pretty rapid opinion. She inquired whether it was curable, and he replied that he could not say upon so superficial an examination, but he would see her at home, if she would tell him where she lived. In her reply, when she said she had no home in London, it escaped her that her husband was a medical man living in France.
"What part of it?" he inquired.
"At Honfleur."
"Honfleur!" echoed the surgeon in an accent of surprise. "Is there sufficient practice to employ an English medical man at Honfleur? I should not have thought it. I was there a year or two ago."
The consciousness of the truth of what the "practice" was dyed her cheeks with their carmine flush. Her eyelids drooped, her trembling fingers entwined themselves convulsively one within the other, as if there were some sad tale to tell. Her bonnet was untied, and its rich white strings (for Watton had affixed these new ones, and taken off the dirty ones) fell on her velvet cloak, nearly the only good relic left of other days. That grave gentleman of sixty, seated opposite to her, thought he had never seen so lovely a face, with its fragile features, its delicate bloom, and its shrinking expression.
She raised her dark blue violet eyes, their lashes wet. Misfortune had brought to her a strange humility. "There's not much practice yet, sir. It may come with time."
He thought he could discern the whole case. It is that of some who go abroad; a struggle for existence, anxiety of mind and body, privation, and the latent constitutional weakness showing itself at last.