After awhile she inquired, in a voice that did not seem her own, “Is he very ill? May I go to him now?”
“He is not more ill than you have seen him before. You can go to him, certainly, but there are some things that you must take into consideration, Miss Tredgold. He is not aware of any change—he is not at all anxious about himself. He thinks this is just the same as the other attacks. If you think it necessary that he should be made aware of his condition, either because of his worldly affairs, or—any other——” Dr. Burnet was accustomed to death-beds. He was not overawed like Katherine, and there seemed something ludicrous to him in the thought of old Tredgold, an old man of the earth, earthly, having—other affairs.
Katherine looked up at him, her eyes looking twice as large as usual in the solemnity of their trouble and awe. There seemed nothing else in the room but her eyes looking at him with an appeal, to which he had no answer to give. “Would it make any difference—now?” she said.
“I cannot tell what your views may be on that subject. Some are very eager that the dying should know—some think it better not to disturb them. It will do him no harm physically to be told; but you must be the judge.”
“I have not thought of it—as I ought,” she said. “Oh, Dr. Burnet, give me your opinion, give me your own opinion! I do not seem able to think.”
“It might give him a chance,” said the doctor, “to put right some wrong he might otherwise leave behind him. If what you are thinking of is that, he might put himself right in any spiritual point of view—at this last moment.”
Katherine rose up as if she were blind, feeling before her with her hands. Her father, with all his imperfections—with nothing that was not imperfection or worse than imperfection—with a mind that had room for nothing but the lowest elements, who had never thought of anything higher, never asked himself whither he was going—— She walked straight forward, not saying anything, not able to bear another word. To put himself right—at the last moment. She felt that she must hasten to him, fly to him, though she did not know, being there, what she should do.
The room was so entirely in its usual condition—the nurse settling for the night, the medicines arranged in order, the fire made up, and the nightlight ready to be lighted—that it seemed more and more impossible to realise that this night there was likely to occur something different, something that was not on the invalid’s programme. The only thing that betrayed a consciousness of any such possibility was the look which the nurse rapidly gave Katherine as she came in. “I am putting everything as usual,” she said in a whisper, “but I think you should not go to bed.” That was all—and yet out of everything thus settled and habitual around him, he was going away, going absolutely away to no one could tell where, perhaps this very night. Katherine felt herself stupefied, confounded, and helpless. He was going away all alone, with no directions, no preparations for the journey. What could she tell him of the way? Could any guide be sent with him? Could any instinct lead him? A man accustomed only to business, to the state of the stocks and the money market. Her heart began to beat so fast that it sickened her, and she was conscious of scarcely anything but its sound and the heaving of her breast.
The invalid, however, was not composed as usual. He was very restless, his eyes shining from his emaciated face. “Ah, that’s you, Katie,” he said; “it’s too late for you to be up—and the doctor back again. What brings the doctor back again? Have you any more to do to me, eh, to-night?”
“Only to make sure that you’re comfortable,” Dr. Burnet said.