He passed into one of the sitting-rooms with Lady Sarah when he descended. “What do you think of the case?” she eagerly asked.
“There will be some difficulty with it,” was the candid reply. “Lady Sarah, her hair must come off.”
“Her hair come off!” uttered Lady Sarah, aghast. “That it never shall! She has the loveliest hair! What is Ethel’s hair, compared with hers?”
“You heard the determination I expressed, Lady Sarah,” he quietly said.
“But Sarah Anne will never allow it to be done,” she returned, shifting the ground of remonstrance from her own shoulders. “And to do it in opposition to her would be enough to kill her.”
“It will not be done in opposition to her,” he answered. “She will be unconscious before it is attempted.”
Lady Sarah’s heart sank. “You anticipate that she will be dangerously ill?”
“In these cases there is always danger, Lady Sarah. But worse cases than—- as I believe—hers will be, have recovered from it.”
“If I lose her, I shall die myself!” she passionately uttered. “And, if she is to have it badly, she will die! Remember, Mr. Snow, how weak she has always been!”
“We sometimes find that weak constitutions battle best with an epidemic,” he replied. “Many a sound one has it struck down and taken off; many a sickly one has struggled through it, and been the stronger for it afterwards.”