Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/223

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"Nothing is certain but the unforeseen;" so says a French proverb, and judging from the unexpected things which daily happen to us, it is without doubt a very true one. If anyone had told Madge Frettlby one day that she would be stretched on a bed of sickness the next, and would be quite oblivious of the world and its doings, she would have laughed the prophet to scorn. Yet it was so, and she was tossing and turning on a bed of pain to which the couch of was one of roses. Sal sat beside her, ever watchful of her wants, and listened through the bright hours of the day, or the still ones of the night, to the wild and incoherent words which issued from her lips. She kept incessantly calling on her father to save himself, and then would talk about Brian, and sing snatches of song, or sob out broken sentences about her dead mother, until the heart of the listener ached to hear her. No one was allowed in the room except Sal, and when Dr. Chinston heard the things she was saying, although used to such cases, he recoiled.

"There is blood on your hands," cried Madge, sitting up in bed, with her hair all tangled and falling over her shoulders; "red blood, and you cannot wash it off. Oh, Cain! God save him! Brian, you are not guilty; my father killed him. God! God !" and she fell back on her disordered pillows, weeping bitterly.

"What does she mean?" asked the doctor startled by her last words.

"Nothing," answered Sal, curtly, going to the bed.

Dr. Chinston did not say anything, but shortly afterwards took his leave, after telling Sal on no account to let anyone see the patient.

"Tain't likely," said Sal, in a disgusted tone, as she closed the door after him. "I'm not a viper to sting the bosom as fed me," from which it may be gathered she was advancing rapidly in her education.

Meanwhile Dr. Chinston had received Calton's telegram,