One thing more—What should she say to Oxbye? What excuse should she make for coming back? How should she persuade him to keep silence about her presence? His passion suggested a plan and a reason. She had come back, she would tell him, for love of him, to watch over him, unseen by the doctor, to go away with him when he was strong enough to travel. He was a simple and a candid soul, and he would fall into such a little innocent conspiracy. Meantime, it would be quite easy for her to remain in the house perfectly undisturbed and unknown to either of the gentlemen.
She opened the door and looked in.
So far, no reason would be wanted. The patient was sleeping peacefully. But not in the bed. He was lying, partly dressed and covered with a blanket, on the sofa. With the restlessness of convalescence he had changed his couch in the morning after a wakeful night, and was now sleeping far into the morning.
The bed, as is common in French houses, stood in an alcove. A heavy curtain hung over a rod, also in the French manner. Part of this curtain lay over the head of the bed.
The woman perceived the possibility of using the curtain as a means of concealment. There was a space of a foot between the bed and the wall. She placed herself, therefore, behind the bed, in this space, at the head, where the curtain entirely concealed her. Nothing was more unlikely than that the doctor should look behind the bed in that corner. Then with her scissors she pierced a hole in the curtain large enough for her to see perfectly without the least danger of being seen, and she waited to see what would happen.
She waited for half an hour, during which the sleeping man slept on without movement, and the voices of the two men in the
When they came in a few minutes later, they had their cigars, and Lord Harry's face was slightly flushed, perhaps with the wine he had taken at breakfast—perhaps with the glass of brandy after his coffee.
The doctor threw himself into a chair and crossed his legs, looking thoughtfully at his patient. Lord Harry stood over him.
'Every day,' he said, 'the man gets better.'
'He has got better every day, so far,' said the doctor.
'Every day his face gets fatter, and he grows less like me.'
'It is true,' said the doctor.
'Then—what the devil are we to do?'
'Wait a little longer,' said the doctor.
The woman in her hiding-place hardly dared to breathe.
'What?' asked Lord Harry. 'You mean that the man, after all—'
'Wait a little longer,' the doctor repeated quietly.
'Tell me'—Lord Harry bent over the sick man eagerly—'you think——'
'Look here,' the doctor said. 'Which of us two has had a medical education—you, or I?'
'You, of course.'
'Yes; I, of course. Then I tell you, as a medical man, that appearances are sometimes deceptive. This man, for instance—he looks better; he thinks he is recovering; he feels stronger. You observe that he is fatter in the face. His nurse, Fanny Mere, went away with the knowledge that he was much better, and the conviction that he was about to leave the house as much recovered as such a patient with such a disorder can expect.'
'Well?'
'Well, my lord, allow me to confide in you. Medical men mostly keep their knowledge in such matters to themselves. We know and recognise symptoms which to you are invisible. By these symptoms—by those symptoms,' he repeated slowly and looking hard at the other man, 'I know that this man—no longer Oxbye, my patient, but—another—is in a highly dangerous condition. I have noted the symptoms in my book'—he tapped his pocket—'for future use.'
'And when—when——' Lord Harry was frightfully pale. His lips moved, but he could not finish the sentence. The Thing he had agreed to was terribly near, and it looked uglier than he had expected.
'Oh! when?' the doctor replied carelessly. 'Perhaps to-day—perhaps in a week. Here, you see, Science is sometimes baffled. I cannot say.'
Lord Harry breathed deeply. 'If the man is in so serious a condition,' he said, 'is it safe or prudent for us to be alone in the house without a servant and without a nurse?'
'I was not born yesterday, my lord, I assure you,' said the doctor in his jocular way. 'They have found me a nurse. She will come to-day. My patient's life is, humanly speaking'—Lord Harry shuddered—'perfectly safe until her arrival.'
'Well—but she is a stranger. She must know whom she is nursing.'
'Certainly. She will be told—I have already told her—that she is going to nurse Lord Harry Norland, a young Irish gentleman. She is a stranger. That is the most valuable quality she possesses. She is a complete stranger. As for you, what are you? Anything you please. An English gentleman staying with me under the melancholy circumstances of his lordship's illness. What more natural? The English doctor is staying with his patient, and the English friend is staying with the doctor. When the insurance officer makes inquiries, as he is very likely to do, the nurse will be invaluable for the evidence she will give.'
He rose, pulled up the blinds noiselessly, and opened the windows. Neither the fresh air nor the light awoke the sleeping man.
Vimpany looked at his watch. 'Time for the medicine,' he said. 'Wake him up while I get it ready.'
'Would you not—at least—-suffer him to have his sleep out?' asked Lord Harry, again turning pale.
