Of acute suffering there was little; for the occasional paroxysms of fever and delirium alternated with long fits of death-like stupor, during which for hours together, Geoffrey Baldwin neither moved nor spoke. When delirious, his thoughts appeared chiefly to run on the letter to which he had alluded in the beginning of his illness. Marion got accustomed to his speaking of it, and came to think it must be merely a dream, for though she looked in every direction, in likely and unlikely places, she found no letter to which his broken sentences could refer. She soothed, or tried to soothe, his anxiety on the subject (for she was never sure if she understood what she said) by assuring him she had read the letter and would attend to all its injunctions. “When all is over?” he asked her once, wistfully gazing in her face. But not even to satisfy him could she bring herself to repeat the dreadful words—“Yes, when all is over.”
All through the weary weeks she watched him, as if with the concentrated devotion of mother, sister and wife. She did not allow herself to think: had she done so her strength must assuredly have failed; as it was, it stood the test in a way that astonished all about her.
“You do not know how wiry I am,” she said one day to Dr. Hamley, and she judged herself correctly.
At last, at last—when June had grown into July, and the leaves on the few trees in Brewer Street were already, poor stunted things, brown and shrivelled by Millington dust and smoke, and seemingly inclined in disgust and disappointment to drop off in premature decay—at last, after the long waiting, the heart sickness of hope deferred till it had all but become despair, Marion had her reward.
“He has got the turn, my dear,” said Dr. Hamley. “He has got the turn, and if we can now keep up his strength and spirits, we shall, by God’s blessing, pull him through.”
[CHAPTER] XII.
GEOFFREY’S WIDOW.
“One law holds ever good,
That nothing comes to life of man on earth
Unscathed throughout by woe.”
PLUMPTRE’S SOPHOCLES.
SHE had thought the worst over, but it hardly proved to be so. He lay, indeed, peaceful and calm, her own Geoffrey again, restored to himself in mind and spirit, no longer tossed by the anguish of delirium, or deadened by unrefreshing stupor. But he did not gain strength. From day to day no progress was made. Dr. Hamley was nonplussed.