He joined her after he had disposed of the disputed whisky-bottle. And there they sat in an appalling silence, until Emily came back from church, and relieved him of his charge.
That was the last time that Lizzie referred to Lady Phayre. He wondered how she had learned her name—that name Rhodanthe, which he had ever in his mind—which, save this once, he had never heard uttered aloud. It was a curious freak of fate’s irony that, on this one occasion, it should have been uttered by his wife’s lips. The circumstance embittered him still more against her.
A few weeks after this the long-expected vacancy in the Hough division occurred, and Goddard was definitely chosen as the Radical candidate. In the very beginning of his electoral campaign he received news from London that the terrible drink illness had fallen upon his wife.
CHAPTER XII—A LEADER OF MEN
“D O YOU think it wise for me to go in?” asked Goddard.
“She has been asking for you,” said the nurse. “It may do her good; but don’t speak to her.”
“Then she has definitely turned the corner.”
“Yes; at last. But her recovery depends upon absolute quiet. It is the heart now. A sudden excitement, and then”—she snapped her fingers—“syncope.”