The day rolls by, the critical ninth day rolls by on its torrid wheels to eventide, and when that eventide comes, it finds Cecilia Wilson running down from Amelia's room, to give the last news of her to the three men and one woman waiting below.
"I think he seems quite satisfied," she says, in answer to the silent hungry looks of question addressed to her, and alluding to the doctor, who is still with the patient; "the strength is maintained; the temperature lower." What a dreadful parrot-sound the two phrases, so familiar to us all in the newspaper bulletins of distinguished men on their death-beds, have during the last week assumed in Burgoyne's ears; "you can speak to him yourself when he comes down, of course, Jim; but I am sure he is satisfied."
"She is better!—she is saved!" cries Byng, rushing forward and snatching both Cecilia's hands—"do you say that she is really saved?"
"Oh, are you here still, Mr. Byng? how very kind of you!" replies Cecilia, a tinge of colour rushing over her mealy face—that face, ten days ago, clothed in so many roses—"well, I am afraid he does not go quite so far as that, but he says it is as much as we can expect, and even I can see that she is not nearly so restless."
"Thank God!—thank God!"
In the ardour of his thanksgiving he presses her hands closer, instead of dropping them, a fact of which he is entirely unaware, but so is not she; and who knows, even at that serious moment, what tiny genial hope may slide into her plump heart!
Again this night Burgoyne does not go to bed, from a superstitious fear that if he does, if he seems to take for granted an improvement, that very taking for granted may annul it—may bring on a relapse. But when the next morning finds no such backsliding to have taken place, when each hour through the cheerfully broadening day brings falling fever and steadying pulse, then indeed he cautiously opens the door of his heart to let a tiny rose-pinioned hope creep in—then at last, on the third night, he stretches his tired limbs in deep slumber upon his bed.
He has received a brief telegram from Mrs. Byng to announce her arrival as fast as boat and train can bring her; and seven o'clock on Saturday morning—he having sent his despatch to her on the previous Wednesday—finds him pacing the platform of the railway-station, awaiting the incoming of the morning express from Turin. He is pacing it alone, for he has thought it best not to reveal to her son the fact of her expected return, not being at all sure in what spirit he will receive it, nor whether indeed the news of it might not even drive him, in his present unsound state of mind, to fly from the place at her approach.
The morning air, in its early clear coolness, blows sweet here, under the station-roof, unconquered even by engine smoke, and on Jim's face as he walks up and down—careworn as it still is—there comes, now and again, a half-born smile. He is never one to hope very easily, but surely now—now that yet another night has been prosperously tided over, there can, even to him, seem no reasonable ground for doubt that Amelia has turned the corner. Amelia, with the corner turned—Byng, in five minutes wholly off his hands! The only wonder is, that the small smile never comes quite to the birth.
The train is punctual, and almost at its due moment draws up in dusty length at the platform. Its passengers are comparatively few; for at this latening season most of the English are winging home to their rooky woods; and he has no difficulty in at once discovering among them the tall smart figure—smart even after forty-eight hours of the unluxurious luxury of a wagon-lit—of the lady he is awaiting. As he gives her his hand to help her down the high step, the admiring thought crosses his mind of what a large quantity of fatigue, dust, and uneasiness of mind a radically good-looking Englishwoman, in radically good clothes, can undergo without seeming much the worse for them. Before her neat narrow foot has touched the pavement, a brace of eager questions shoots out of her mouth.