He rose, dragging himself up by degrees, with a furtive look at Gordon, who, indeed, looked a still less easy opponent than Miss Bethune.
“I take that gentleman to witness,” he said, “as there’s no evidence against me but just a lady’s fancy: and I’ve been treated very bad, and my wrist broken, for aught I know, and bruised all over, and I——”
Miss Bethune stamped her foot on the floor. “Begone, ye born liar and robber!” she said. “Gilchrist will see ye off the premises; and mind, you never come within my sight again. Now, Mr. Harry, as she calls ye, I’ll go into the parlour, as she says; and the Lord, that only knows the wickedness that has been in my mind, forgive me this night! and it would be a comfort to my heart, my bonnie man, if you would say Amen.”
“Amen with all my heart,” said the young man, with a smile, “but, so far as I can make out, your wickedness is to be far too good and forgiving. What did the fellow do? I confess I should not like to be called a vermin, as you called him freely—but if he came with intent to steal, he should have been handed over to the police, indeed he should.”
“I am more worthy of the police than him, if ye but knew: but, heaven be praised, you’ll never know. I mind now, he came with a message when I was playing with these wretched diamonds, like an old fool: and he must have seen or scented them with the creeminal instinct Dr. Roland speaks about.”
She drew a long breath, for she had not yet recovered from the panting of excitement, and then told her story, the rustling without, the opening of the door, the hand extended to the box. When she had told all this with much vividness, Miss Bethune suddenly stopped, drew another long breath, and dropped back upon the sofa where she was sitting. It was not her way; the lights had been dazzling and confusing her ever since they blazed upon her by the opening of the two doors, and the overwhelming horror, and blessed but tremendous revulsion of feeling, which had passed in succession over her, had been more than her strength, already undermined by excitement, could bear. Her breath, her consciousness, her life, seemed to ebb away in a moment, leaving only a pale shadow of her, fallen back upon the cushions.
Once more Harry was the master of the situation. He had seen a woman faint before, which was almost more than Gilchrist, with all her experience, had done, and he had the usual remedies at his fingers’ ends. But this was not like the usual easy faints, over in a minute, to which young Gordon had been accustomed, and Dr. Roland had to be summoned from below, and a thrill of alarm had run through the house, Mrs. Simcox herself coming up from the kitchen, with strong salts and feathers to burn, before Miss Bethune came to herself. The house was frightened, and so at last was the experienced Harry; but Dr. Roland’s interest and excitement may be said to have been pleasurable. “I have always thought this was what was likely. I’ve been prepared for it,” he said to himself, as he hovered round the sofa. It would be wrong to suppose that he lengthened, or at least did nothing to shorten, this faint for his own base purposes, that he might the better make out certain signs which he thought he had recognised. But the fact was, that not only Dora had come from abovestairs, but even Mr. Mannering had dragged himself down, on the alarm that Miss Bethune was dead or dying; and that the whole household had gathered in her room, or on the landing outside; while she lay, in complicity (or not) with the doctor, in that long-continued swoon, which the spectators afterwards said lasted an hour, or two, or even three hours, according to their temperaments.
When she came to herself at last, the scene upon which she opened her eyes was one which helped her recovery greatly, by filling her with wrath and indignation. She lay in the middle of her room, in a strong draught, the night air blowing from window to window across her, the lamp even under its shade, much more the candles on the mantelpiece, blown about, and throwing a wavering glare upon the agitated group, Gilchrist in the foreground with her apron at her eyes, and behind her Dora, red with restrained emotions, and Janie and Molly crying freely, while Mrs. Simcox brandished a bunch of fuming feathers, and Mr. Mannering peered over the landlady’s head with his “pince-nez” insecurely balanced on his nose, and his legs trembling under him in a harmony of unsteadiness, but anxiety. Miss Bethune’s wrist was in the grasp of the doctor; and Harry stood behind with a fan, which, in the strong wind blowing across her from window to window, struck the patient as ludicrously unnecessary. “What is all this fuss about?” she cried, trying to raise herself up.
“There’s no fuss, my dear lady,” said the doctor; “but you must keep perfectly quiet.”
“Oh, you’re there, Dr. Roland? Then there’s one sane person. But, for goodness’ sake, make Mr. Mannering sit down, and send all these idiots away. What’s the matter with me, that I’ve to get my death of cold, and be murdered with that awful smell, and even Harry Gordon behaving like a fool, making an air with a fan, when there’s a gale blowing? Go away, go away.”