‘I am glad you have got your senses, ma’am. You have been a long time in a faint. I will go and tell Mrs. Campbell you are awake: she is sitting with the doctor in the dining-room. The doctor asked me to let him know when you came to.’ She was about to leave me.
‘I do not wish to see the doctor,’ I exclaimed feebly. ‘Where am I?’
‘You are in Mr. John Campbell’s house, ma’am.’
‘Why am I in his house?’
‘You fainted away just outside his door and was carried in by me and the gardener.’
‘I do not wish to see the doctor,’ said I. ‘Where is my hat and veil?’ and I endeavoured to sit up, but fell back again, feeling as weak as though I had been confined to my bed for a month by a severe illness.
At this moment I heard footsteps, and my sister entered the room, followed by a gentleman who instantly stepped to my side. He asked me how I felt, but I made no answer, and on his taking my wrist to feel my pulse I drew my hand away. I knew him very well; he was Doctor B——, he had attended me with each of my children; but now he looked at me with a subdued air of astonishment at my appearance—with nothing but that expression in his face; he recognised me no more than my nurse did.
‘I have asked for my hat and veil,’ said I, ‘I wish to return to the hotel at which I am stopping. I am quite well now,’ and again I essayed to rise, and again fell back.
‘She appears to have overtaxed herself,’ said the doctor, speaking to my sister as though I were not present. ‘One would suppose she had walked from London and eaten nothing the whole way.’
I drew my handkerchief from my pocket and held it to my mouth to hide my face as much as possible, and I also turned my head away from the light, which, indeed, was sufficiently subdued owing to the green shade that covered the lamp, and to the smallness of the fire.