Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/646

624 glistening in the long avenue at the Dene, an unforeseen relief for poor Theodosia's relations began dimly to be shadowed forth. Dora had never thoroughly got over the ill effects of her Paris dissipation, the excitement and exposure she had gone through upon that fatal night of her elopement. Her strength, at no time great, had grown less and less, and now that the East winds blew cold, her old cough came back, and she began to have a color that owed nothing to art upon her cheeks. "I'm ill because I am wearied to death; ill as I was in the Autumn at Ashcot," she would say, whenever Katharine questioned her about her state. "Consult Mr. Huntley? Be dosed and blistered to make up a village doctor's Christmas bill. Thank you. You needn't be afraid, Kate. People who are wanted to die, people for whom there is no place, either in earth or in heaven, never do die, I have remarked. Steven will have years enough to wait before he can bring a second wife home to Ashcot."

But still the cough grew hollower, the red, that was not rouge, brighter on her cheeks, and at last, just as May set in, and the "Morning Post" began to recount the first gayeties of the season, Dora acknowledged that she did feel ill indeed, and might consult a London physician with advantage. Not go up for the day merely, have her pulse felt, be told to take care of herself, pay a guinea, and come down to Clithero again, but be placed, at least for some weeks, under a first class physician's care. Have one more look, that is to say, at the treasure where her heart was; see bonnets, and carriages, and streets, instead of the monotonous budding green by which this dull old Dene was bounded; test, practically (what, for aught she knew, was still an open question), whether the world meant to "receive" Steven Lawrence's discarded wife or not?

Mrs. Hilliard, when first consulted about the London plan, showed herself, for about five minutes, unusually open to reason; considered, indeed, that it would be the Squire's plain duty to pay for doctors and apartments — and you could get nice moderate apartments toward Russell Square! When Katharine inadvertently expressed an intention of accompanying the invalid to town, she went round in a moment, declaring that the whole proposal was a heartless conspiracy against herself. At home it had been bad enough. During the last two months had Mrs. Ducie—had any of their old friends done more than leave a formal card of inquiry? To be estranged from the whole of one's county acquaintances was a cross that Mrs. Hilliard was prepared to bear, as she had borne all other crosses inflicted by Theodosia's unhappy child. For her own daughter, an unmarried girl, to be seen in London at the side of a woman in Dora's position, was not to be spoken of. "I have done everything that my duty as a Christian has bidden me do for Dora Lawrence," said Mrs. Hilliard, in the tone of a Cornelia, "but I will not sacrifice the good name of our family any further. Dora has committed a disreputable action. Let her bear the penalties of it to herself."

"But, then, if she is ill!" pleaded Katharine. "It will be more a matter of nursing, I begin to think, than of being seen by the world, if we do go to London. Mamma, you who know so well what sickness is, would you let her be ill, with only servants to wait upon her, in a London lodging?"

"I don't see why not, Kate. I was ill, with only servants to wait upon me, when you and Mr. Hilliard left me to run (and a great mistake it was!) after her and her disreputable associates in Paris."

"Disreputable again! Oh, mamma, mamma, let us drop that word. Suppose the poor little creature is worse than we think! Suppose she never gets better—would she be disreputable, I wonder, when she was in her grave?"