Mr. Gerard looked upon Mrs. Evitt’s ailments as in a large degree imaginary, but he found her weak and overworked, and gave her a gentle course of quinine, ill as he could afford to supply her with so expensive a tonic. For some time the quinine had a restorative effect, and Mrs. Evitt thought her lodger the first man in his profession. That young man understood her constitution as nobody else had ever understood it, she told her gossips, and that young man would make his way. A doctor who had understood a constitution which had hitherto baffled the faculty was bound to achieve greatness. Unfortunately, the good effect of Gerard’s prescription was not lasting. There was a good deal of wet and foggy weather at the close of the old year and at the beginning of the new year; and the damp and fog crept into Mrs. Evitt’s kitchen, and seemed to take hold of her hard-worked old bones. She exhibited some very fine examples of shivering—her teeth chattered, her complexion turned blue with cold. Even three pennyworth of best unsweetened gin, taken in half a tumbler of boiling water, failed to comfort or exhilarate her.
“I’m afraid I’m in for it,” Mrs. Evitt exclaimed to a neighbour, who had dropped in to pass the time of day and borrow an Italian iron. “And this time it’s ague.”
And then, forcing the attack a little for the benefit of the neighbour, she set up one of those dreadful shivering fits, which rattled all the teeth in her head. “It’s ague this time,” she repeated, when the shivering had abated. “I never had ague until now.”
“Nonsense,” cried the neighbour, with an assumption of cheerfulness. “It ain’t ague. Lord bless you, people don’t have ague in the heart of London, in a warm comfortable kitchen like this. It’s only in marshes and suchlike places that you hear of ague.”
“Never you mind,” retorted Mrs. Evitt, solemnly. “I’ve got the ague, and if Mr. Gerard doesn’t say as much when he comes home, he isn’t the clever man I think him.”
Mr. Gerard came home in due course, letting himself in quietly with his latchkey, soon after dark. Mrs. Evitt managed to crawl upstairs with a tray, carrying a mutton-chop, a loaf, and a pat of butter. To cook the chop had cost her an effort, and it was as much as she could do to drag her weary limbs upstairs.
“Why, what’s the matter with you tonight, Mrs. Bouncer?” asked Gerard, who had given his landlady that classic name. “You’re looking very queer.”
“I know I am,” answered Mrs. Evitt, with gloomy resignation. “I’ve got the ague.”
“Ague, nonsense!” cried Gerard, rising and feeling her pulse. “Let’s look at your tongue, old lady. That’ll do. I’ll soon set you on your legs again, if you do what I tell you.”
“What is that?”
“Get to bed, and stay there till you’re well. You’re not fit to be slaving about the house, my good soul. You must get to bed and keep yourself warm, and have someone to feed you with good soup and arrowroot, and suchlike.”
“Who’s to look after the house?” asked Mrs. Evitt, dismally. “I shall be ruined.”
“No, you won’t. I’m your only lodger just now.” Mrs. Evitt sighed, dolefully. “And I want very little waiting upon. You’ll want someone to wait upon you, though. You’d better get a charwoman.”
“Eighteenpence a day, three substantial meals, and a pint of beer,” sighed Mrs. Evitt. “I should be eat out of house and home. If I must lay up, Mr. Gerard, I’ll get a girl. I know of a decent girl that would come for her vittles, and a trifle at the end of the week.”
“Ah,” said Gerard, “there are a good many decent young men walking the streets of London, who would go anywhere for their victuals. Life’s a harder problem than any proposition in Euclid, my worthy Bouncer.”
The landlady shook her head in melancholy assent.
“Now look here, my good soul,” said Gerard, seriously. “If you want to get well, you mustn’t sleep in that kennel of yours down below.”
“Kennel!” cried the outraged matron, “kennel! Mr. Gerard. Why, you might eat your dinner off the floor.”
“I dare say you might; but every breath you draw there is tainted more or less with sewer gas. That furred tongue of yours looks rather like blood-poisoning. You must make yourself up a comfortable bed on the first floor, and keep a nice little bit of fire in your room day and night.”
“Not in her room, Mr. Gerard,” exclaimed Mrs. Evitt, with a shudder. “I couldn’t do it, sir. It isn’t like as if I was a stranger. Strangers wouldn’t feel it. But I knew her. I should see her beautiful eyes glaring at me all night long. It would be the death of me.”
“Well, then, there’s Desrolles’ room. You can’t have any objection to that.”
Mrs. Evitt shuddered again.
“I’m that nervous,” she said, “that my mind’s set against those upstairs rooms.”
“You’ll never get well downstairs. If you don’t fancy that first floor bedroom you can make yourself up a bed in the sitting-room. There’s plenty of light and air there.”
“I might do that,” said Mrs. Evitt, “though it goes against me to ’ack my beautiful drawring-room—”
“You won’t hurt your drawing-room. You have to recover your health.”
“Health is a blessed privilege. Well, I’ll put up a truckle bed in the first floor front. The girl could sleep on a mattress on the floor at the bottom of my bed. She’d be company.”
“Of course she would. Make yourself comfortable mentally and bodily, and you’ll soon get well. Now, how about this girl? You must get her immediately.”
“I’ve
