"Nothing, ma'am," said Mrs. Jazeph, in the same constrained, whispering tones in which she had answered Mrs. Frankland's former question. "I think I was just falling asleep in the arm-chair here; and I ought to have told you perhaps that, having had my troubles, and being afflicted with a heart complaint, I have a habit of sighing in my sleep. It means nothing, ma'am, and I hope you will be good enough to excuse it."
Rosamond's generous instincts were aroused in a moment.
"Excuse it!" she said. "I hope I may do better than that, Mrs. Jazeph, and be the means of relieving it. When Mr. Orridge comes to-morrow you shall consult him, and I will take care that you want for nothing that he may order. No! no! Don't thank me until I have been the means of making you well—and keep where you are, if the arm-chair is comfortable. The baby is asleep again; and I should like to have half an hour's quiet before I change to the night side of the bed. Stop where you are for the present: I will call as soon as I want you."
So far from exercising a soothing effect on Mrs. Jazeph, these kindly meant words produced the precisely opposite result of making her restless. She began to walk about the room, and confusedly attempted to account for the change in her conduct by saying that she wished to satisfy herself that all her arrangements were properly made for the night. In a few minutes more she began, in defiance of the doctor's prohibition, to tempt Mrs. Frankland into talking again, by asking questions about Porthgenna Tower, and by referring to the chances for and against its being chosen as a permanent residence by the young married couple.
"Perhaps, ma'am," she said, speaking on a sudden, with an eagerness in her voice which was curiously at variance with the apparent indifference of her manner—"Perhaps when you see Porthgenna Tower you may not like it so well as you think you will now. Who can tell that you may not get tired and leave the place again after a few days—especially if you go into the empty rooms? I should have thought—if you will excuse my saying so, ma'am—I should have thought that a lady like you would have liked to get as far away as possible from dirt and dust, and disagreeable smells."
"I can face worse inconveniences than those, where my curiosity is concerned," said Rosamond. "And I am more curious to see the uninhabited rooms at Porthgenna than to see the Seven Wonders of the World. Even if we don't settle altogether at the old house, I feel certain that we shall stay there for some time."
At that answer, Mrs. Jazeph abruptly turned away, and asked no more questions. She retired to a corner of the room near the door, where the chair-bedstead stood which the doctor had pointed out to her—occupied herself for a few minutes in making it ready for the night—then left it as suddenly as she had approached it, and began to walk up and down once more. This unaccountable restlessness, which had already surprised Rosamond, now made her feel rather uneasy—especially when she once or twice overheard Mrs. Jazeph talking to herself. Judging by words and fragments of sentences that were audible now and then, her mind was still running, with the most inexplicable persistency, on the subject of Porthgenna Tower. As the minutes wore on, and she continued to walk up and down, and still went on talking, Rosamond's uneasiness began to strengthen into something like alarm. She resolved to awaken Mrs. Jazeph, in the least offensive manner, to a sense of the strangeness of her own conduct, by noticing that she was talking, but by not appearing to understand that she was talking to herself.
"What did you say?" asked Rosamond, putting the question at a moment when the nurse's voice was most distinctly betraying her in the act of thinking aloud.
Mrs. Jazeph stopped, and raised her head vacantly, as if she had been awakened out of a heavy sleep.
"I thought you were saying something more about our old house," continued Rosamond. "I thought I heard you say that I ought not to go to Porthgenna, or that you would not go there in my place, or something of that sort."