"Yes, but the fever began just in this way. It carried him off
in no time. You had better see a doctor, sir. Doctor was no use in my husband's case, but it is satisfaction to have him."
Here Sarah Ann, who had been listening with mouth and eyes open, suddenly burst into tears, and was led out of the room, exclaiming, "Him such a quiet gentleman, and he never flung nothing at me."
Though I knew that I had only caught a nasty cold, a conviction in which the doctor confirmed me, my landlady stood out for its being just such another case as her husband's, and regaled me for hours with reminiscences of his rapid decline. If I was a little better one day, alas! he had been a little better the day before he died; and if I answered her peevishly, she told Sarah Ann that my voice was going. She brought the beef-tea up with her own hands, her countenance saying that I might as well have it, though it could not save me. Sometimes I pushed it away untasted (how I loathe beef-tea now!), when she whispered something to Sarah Ann that sent that tender-hearted maid howling once more from the room.
"He's supped it all," Sarah Ann said one day, brightening.
"That's a worse sign," said her mistress, "than if he hadn't took none."
I lay on a sofa, pulled close to the fire, and when the doctor came, my landlady was always at his heels, Sarah Ann's dismal face showing at the door. The doctor is a personal friend of my own, and each day he said I was improving a little.
"Ah, doctor!" my landlady said, reprovingly.
"He does it for the best," she exclaimed to me, "but I don't hold with doctors as deceive their patients. Why don't he speak out the truth like a man? My husband were told the worst, and so he had time to reconcile himself."
On one of these occasions I summoned up sufficient energy to send her out of the room; but that only made matters worse.