With her mouth open, the nurse stood up and gazed in the direction in which she had disappeared. Sir Jekyl, on the other hand, witnessed her entrance with a silent amazement, scarcely less than the nurse's. A few hurried steps brought her to his bedside, and looking down upon him with great agony, and her hands clasped together, she said, with a kind of sob--
"Thank God, thank God!--alive, alive! Oh, Jekyl, what hours of torture!"
"Alive! to be sure I'm alive, little fool!" said the Baronet, with an effort, smiling uncomfortably. "They have not been telling you it's anything serious?"
"They told me nothing. I've heard nothing. I've seen no one but Gwynn. Oh, Jekyl! tell me the truth; what do they say?--there's so much blood on the floor."
"Why, my precious child, don't worry yourself about it; they evidently think it's nothing at all. I know it's nothing, only what they call, just, the muscles--you know--a little sore. I'll be on my legs again in a week."
"I'm going to Wardlock, Jekyl; you'll hear news of me from there."
Had the tone or the look something ineffably ominous? I know not.
"Come, Jennie, none of that," he answered. "No folly. I've behaved very badly. _I_'ve been to blame; altogether _my_ fault. Don't tease yourself about what can't be helped. We must not do anything foolish, though. I'm tired of the world; so are you, Jennie; we are both sick of it. If we choose to live out of it, what the plague do we really lose?"
At this moment the nurse, slowly opening the door a little, said, with a look of quiet authority--
"Please, sir, the doctor said particular you were not to talk, sir."
"D--n you and the doctor--get out of that, and shut the door!" cried the Baronet; and the woman vanished, scared.
"Give me your hand, Jennie darling, and don't look as if the sky had fallen. I'm not going to make my bow yet, I promise you."
"And then, I suppose, a duel," said Lady Jane, wringing her hands in an agony.
"Duel, you little fool! Why, there's no such thing now, that is, in these countries. Put fighting quite out of your head, and listen to me. You're right to keep quiet for a little time, and Wardlock is as good a place as any. I shall be all right again in a few days."
"I can look no one in the face; no--never again--and Beatrix; and--oh, Jekyl, how will it be? I am half wild."