It seemed as if old Donica's breath was suspended. Shade after shade her face darkened, as with wide eyes she stared in the gazing face of Lady Jane, who cried, with a strange laugh of rage--

"Yes--Sir Jekyl--how _is_ he?"

"Oh, Miss Jane!--oh, Miss Jane!--oh, Miss Jane!--and is _that_ it?"

Lady Jane's face was dark with other fiercer pa.s.sions.

"Can't you answer, and not talk?" said she.

Donica's eyes wandered to the far end of the room to the fatal recess, and she was shaking her head, as if over a tale of horror.

"Yes, I see, you know it all, and you'll _hate_ me now, as the others will, and I don't care."

Suspicions are one thing--faint, phantasmal; certainties quite another.

Donica Gwynn looked appalled.

"Oh! poor Miss Jennie!" she cried at last, and burst into tears. Before this old domestic Lady Jane was standing--a statue of shame, of defiance--the fallen angelic.

"You're doing that to make me mad."

"Oh! no, miss; I'm sorry."

There was silence for a good while.

"The curse of G.o.d's upon this room," said Donica, fiercely, drying her eyes. "I wish you had never set foot in it. Come away, my lady. I'll go and send at once for a carriage to the town, and we'll go together, ma'am, to Wardlock. Shall I, ma'am?"

"Yes, I'll go," said Lady Jane. "Let us go, you and I. I won't go with Lady Alice. I won't go with her."

"Good-bye, my lady; good-bye, Miss Jennie dear; I'll be here again presently."

Dressed for the journey, with her cloak on and bonnet, Lady Jane sat in an arm-chair, haggard, listless, watching the slow shuffling of her own foot upon the floor, while Donica departed to complete the arrangements for their journey.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

The two Doctors consult.

The doctor from Slowton had arrived at last. The horses, all smoking with the break-neck speed at which they had been driven, stood at the hall-door steps. The doctor himself, with Pratt and the nurse, were up-stairs in the patient's room. The Rev. Dives Marlowe, looking uncomfortable and bilious, hovered about the back stairs that led to Sir Jekyl's apartment, to waylay the doctors on their way down, and listened for the sound of their voices, to gather from their tones something of their spirits and opinions respecting his brother, about whose attack he had instinctive misgivings. The interview was a long one. Before it was over Dives had gradually ascended to the room outside the Baronet's, and was looking out of the window on the prospect below with the countenance with which one might look on a bad balance-sheet.

The door opened, the doctors emerged--the Slowton man first, Pratt following, both looking grave as men returning from the sacrament.

"Oh! Mr. Dives Marlowe--the Rev. Dives Marlowe," murmured Pratt as the door was shut.

The lean pract.i.tioner from Slowton bowed low, and the ceremony over--

"Well, gentlemen?" inquired the Rev. Dives Marlowe.

"We are about to compare notes, and discuss the case a little--Doctor Pratt and I--and we shall then, sir, be in a position to say something a--a--definite, we hope."

So the Rev. Dives withdrew to the stair-head, exchanging bows with the priests of aesculapius, and there awaited the opening of the doors. When that event came, and the Rev. Dives entered--

"Well, Mr. Marlowe," murmured the Slowton doctor, a slight and dismal man of five-and-fifty--"we think, sir, that your brother, Sir Jekyl Marlowe, is not in immediate danger; but it would not be right or fair to conceal the fact that he is in a very critical state--highly so, in fact; and we think it better on the whole that some member of his family should advise him, if he has anything to arrange--a--a will, or any particular business, that he should see to it; and we think that--we are quite agreed upon this, Doctor Pratt?"

Pratt bowed a.s.sent, forgetful that he had not yet heard what they were agreed on.

"We think he should be kept very quiet; he's very low, and must have claret. We have told the nurse in what quant.i.ties to administer it, and some other things; she's a very intelligent woman, and your servants can take their directions from her."

Dives felt very oddly. We talk of Death all our lives, but know nothing about him until he stands in our safe homesteads suddenly before us, face to face. He is a much grizzlier object than we had fancied when busied with a brother or a child. What he is when he comes for ourselves, the few who have seen him waiting behind the doctor and live can vaguely remember.

"Good Lord, sir!" said Dives, "is he really in that state? I had no idea."

"Don't mis_take_ us, sir. We don't say he may not, if everything goes right, do very well. Only the case is critical, and we should deceive you if we shrank from telling you so; is not that your view, Doctor--Dr.

Pratt?"

Dr. Pratt was of course quite clear on the point.

"And you are in very able hands here," and the Slowton doctor waved his yellow fingers and vouchsafed a grave smile and nod of approbation toward Pratt, who wished to look indifferent under the compliment, but simpered a little in spite of himself.

The Rev. Dives Marlowe accompanied the two doctors down-stairs, looking like a man going to execution.

"You need not be afraid, sir," said Dives, laying his hand on the Slowton leech's sleeve. The grave gentleman stopped and inclined his ear to listen, and the three stood huddled together on the small landing, Dives' nervous fingers in the banister.

"I don't quite see, sir," observed the doctor.

"I give him up, sir; you need not be afraid to tell me."

"You are right, perhaps, to give him up; but I always say exactly what I think. Doctor--a--_Pratt_ and I--we tell you frankly--we think him in a very critical state; but it's quite on the cards he may recover; and we have given very full directions to the nurse, who appears to be a very intelligent person; and don't let him shift his att.i.tude unnecessarily, it may prejudice him, and be in fact attended with danger--very _serious_ danger; and Doctor Pratt shall look in at five o'clock--you were so good as to say, Doctor Pratt, you would look in at five. Doctor Pratt will look in _then_, and do anything that may be necessary; and if there should be the slightest symptom of haemorrhage send for him instantly, and the nurse knows what to do; and I think--I think I have said everything now."

"Haemorrhage, sir! But _what_ haemorrhage? Why, what haemorrhage is apprehended?" asked Dives, amazed.

"Internal or external it may occur," said the doctor; and Pratt, coughing and shaking his chops, interposed hurriedly and said--

"Yes, there may be a bleeding, it may come to that."

"He has bled a great deal already, you are aware," resumed the Slowton doctor, "and in his exhausted state a return of that might of course be very bad."

"But I don't understand," persisted Dives. "I beg pardon, but I really must. What _is_ this haemorrhage? it is not connected with gout, is it?"

"Gout, sir! no; who said gout? A bad wound, that seems to run toward the lung," answered the Slowton man.

"Wound! how's this? I did not hear," and Dives looked frightened, and inquiringly on Pratt, who said--

"Not hear, didn't you? Why, Sir Jekyl undertook to tell you, and would not let me. He took me in for a while, poor fellow, quite, and said 'twas gout, that's all. I'm surprised he did not tell you."

"No--_no_--not a word; and--and you think, sir, it may begin bleeding afresh?"