"She is not well," said the old woman excitedly. "She has eaten nothing for days!"
The girl reclined, cold and pale as marble, in the young man's arms. Her eyes were half closed, her lips half open.
He half led her half lifted her to a couch. Restoratives such as stood at hand were applied, but she did not quite recover. She was not exactly unconscious. This was no ordinary faint.
The women were terrified. Mrs. Grace had never seen her in any such state before. To her knowledge the girl had never fainted.
The ladies were terrified, and Hanbury ran off for a doctor. When he came back, the girl had been got upstairs. She was still in the same state, not quite conscious, and not quite insensible.
The doctor made a long examination, and heard all that was to be told. When he came down to the dining-room, where Hanbury was excitedly walking up and down, he said the case was serious, but not exactly dangerous, that is, the patient's life was in no imminent peril. She had simply been overwrought and weakened by want of food, and jarred by suppressed and contending emotions. There was no organic disease, but the heart had been functionally affected by the vicissitudes of the past few days acting on an organism of exquisite sensibility. Quiet was the best medicine, and after quiet, careful strengthening, and then the drugs mentioned in this prescription. But above all, quiet.
Could she be moved? Mrs. Grace asked.
By no means. Moving might not bring about a fatal termination, but it would most assuredly enhance her danger, and most certainly retard her recovery.
Would she recover?
There was no reason to fear she would not. All was sound, but much was weak. Her anxiety of mind, and the excitement of going to that uncongenial home, and the long walk the morning she left, and the lack of food had weakened her much, but nothing had given way or was in immediate peril of giving way, and with care and quiet all would be well.