CHAPTER XVI.
“Edna, where are you?”
“Here, mother.”
“You heard me calling you; why did you not answer?”
“I have answered by coming to you. How is Mr. Hope?”
“In a dreadfully nervous state. He thinks he is not hurt, but I am sure he has been injured internally, which is far worse than outward wounds, as I told him. He seems to be strung on wires, and jumps every time his wife makes the most casual remark to him. I advised him to see a physician, and know the worst at once. And Mrs. Hope tells me he acts very queerly. He took scarcely any breakfast this morning yet before lunch he ordered into the study a simply enormous meal, and devoured it all alone.”
“Perhaps that was because he had taken so little breakfast.”
“No, child, you don’t know what you are talking about. There are some things Mr. Hope can never touch without being ill afterwards. Mrs. Hope is very careful of his diet. There’s pickles, for instance; he hasn’t touched a pickle for sixteen years, yet to-day he consumed a great quantity, and drank a whole bottle of beer, besides roast beef and cheese, and ever so many other things. Mrs. Hope, poor woman, is sitting with folded hands, waiting for him to die. I never saw such a look of heavenly resignation on any human face before.”