‘Do you live in Bath?’ said the doctor.
‘No,’ I answered.
‘Where are you stopping?’
I named the hotel and said, ‘I wish to return to it.’
‘My carriage is at the door,’ said he, ‘I shall be happy to drive you to your hotel.’
My sister, who had been standing at a little distance with the shadow of the shaded lamp upon her face, said: ‘I cannot suffer the lady to leave until she is stronger and better.’
‘Are you alone at the hotel?’ said the doctor.
‘Yes,’ said I, answering him in a weak voice; ‘but that does not matter. I will thankfully accept your offer to drive me to my hotel,’ and again I tried to sit up, but my having been on my feet from ten o’clock in the morning to four o’clock that afternoon, my having taken nothing to eat or drink—no, not so much as a glass of water—and, above all, the terrible agitation, the dreadful continuous expectancy, and the hundred feelings which had burnt like fires in my breast as I passed my home again and again, all this had done its work; a few hours’ rest might help to restore me, but as I now was I was incapable of any exertion.
The doctor saw how it was. He drew my sister to the other side of the room and conversed with her. I tried to hear what was said, but caught only a few sentences. He seemed to advise her to keep me for an hour or two, then send me in a cab to the hotel. I heard him whisper: ‘A perfect stranger, you see, Mrs. Campbell’—‘a genuine case I don’t doubt’—‘I would not, if I were you, keep her through the whole night’—these, and one or two more sentences of counsel, were all I heard. He then bade my sister good-night; meanwhile I kept my face from the light and my handkerchief to my mouth.
‘You will sleep here to-night,’ said the sweet voice of my sister, and looking up I perceived her bending over me. Her face was tranquil, her gaze perfectly calm with an expression of gentle sadness that had been there ever since I could remember. Pity was the only look in her face that was in any way marked. She glanced at my white hair, and her eyes rested for a little while upon my face, but her regard was without recognition. Her presence was a torture to me. My old love for her was strong and deep. There she stood, my sweet, my gentle, my beloved sister, and I dared not own myself—I dared scarcely look at her; for her occupation of my place was based on deep conviction of my death. I would have killed myself sooner than by confession of my existence have forced her from the position she had purely entered upon with a spirit which she would take to her grave clothed in mourning for the sister whom she believed dead.