Then in a moment there came a tremendous crash, and Mortomley was lying on the matting which covered the floor, like one dead.
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. WERNER ASKS A FAVOUR.
About the very happiest hour of Dolly Mortomley's life was one in which her husband, still weak and languid, after watching her gliding about his sick-room, said—feebly it is true, but still as his wife had not heard him speak since the time of his first attack at Homewood—"My poor Dolly."
It was the voice of the olden time—of the never-to-be-forgotten past, when if she made burdens he was strong enough to carry them. In that pleasant country place the cloud which had for so long a time obscured his mental vision, was rent asunder, and the man's faculties that had so long lain dormant, were given back to him once more.
Dolly was right. No one save herself knew how ill Mortomley had been during all that weary time at Homewood, during the long sickness at Clapton, during all the months which followed when superficial observers deemed him well.
Though on that bright summer's morning, with his haggard face turned towards the sunlight, he looked more like a man ready for his coffin than fit to engage once more in the battle of life, there was a future possible for Mortomley again—possible even in those remote wilds where newspapers never came, except by post, and then irregularly; where the rector called upon them once a week at least; where the rector's wife visited Dolly every day during the worst part of her husband's illness; where fruit and flowers came every day from the Great House of the neighbourhood by direction of the owner, who was rarely resident; and where the gentry who were resident thought it not beneath their dignity to leave cards for the poor little woman who was in such sore affliction, and who would have been so lonely without the kindly sympathy of those who had—seeing her at church—considered her style of dress most unsuitable, perfectly unaware that Dolly was wearing out the silks and satins and laces and feathers of a happier time with intentions of the truest economy.
But Dolly was no longer unhappy.
"I am so thankful," she said to the rector's wife that day; "my husband is dreadfully weak still, I know, but he will get better—I feel it—I—"