"If he wishes to see my husband, or asks for him--" "I'd make some excuse; say he is out. Colonel Se well excites him; he never fully understood Sir William; and I fear, besides, that he now and then took a humoristic pleasure in those bursts of temper which it is always only too easy to provoke."
"He is very fond of my little boy,--might he go in?" "I think not. I'd say downright repose and isolation. You yourself can step in noiselessly from time to time, and only speak if you see that he wishes it; but on no account mention anything that could awaken interest,--nothing to arouse or to excite. You saw the fearful state that letter threw him into to-night, and the paroxysm of rage with which he called for his will to erase Tom Lendrick's name. Now in all probability he will have totally forgotten the whole incident by to-morrow. Good-night."
After he drove off, she still lingered about the spot where they had been talking. Whatever interest the subject might have had for her, it was not through her affections that interest worked, for she hummed an opera air, "Bianca Luna," and tried to recall some lines of Alfred de Musset's to the "timid planet," and then sat down upon the steps and gazed at the stars.
Sewell moved out into the avenue, and, whistling carelessly to announce his approach, walked up to where she was sitting. "Romantic, certainly!" said he. "Whose carriage was that I met driving out?"
"Dr. Beattie's. He has been here to see Sir William." "Will he die this time, or is it only another false start?" "He is seriously ill. Some news he received from his son gave him a severe shock, and brought on one of his worst attacks. He has been raving since six o'clock."
"I should like to know when he has done anything else. I should like to see the man who ever heard from his lips other than the wildest, crudest nonsense. The question is, is he going to die?"
"Unfavorable! To whom? To _him_ or to _us?_"
"His death could scarcely be favorable to us."
"That 's as it might be. We stand to win on one or two of these twenty wills he has made; and if he should recover and live on, I don't think--indeed I 'm full sure--I couldn't bear it much longer; so that, take it either way, I'd rather he'd die."