Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/729

Rh lives and travels with us, as Richard insisted on coming to Trieste, not to England, and will return with us. It took us, after his arrival, twenty-eight days to accomplish the twenty-eight hours of express between Cannes and Trieste in toil, anguish, and anxiety. We arrived April 5 at home in rest and comfort. He has been making daily progress to health. He is now out walking with his doctor. We had a consultation a few days ago. He will always require great care and watching all his life—diet and internal health; must not climb, as his heart is weak, nor take Turkish baths, nor overwork; and he may so live fifteen years, but he may die any moment of heart disease. And I need not say that I shall never have a really happy, peaceful moment again. In the midst of this my uncle, who was like my father to me, was found dead in his bed. Then I have had a bad lip and money losses, and altogether a bad time of it."

At Trieste Burton led the life of a confirmed invalid, and his wife attended him with unfailing devotion, which was in no way abated by the presence of the resident doctor—is "a disagreeable luxury," as she called him. They used to sit a good deal under their favourite linden tree in the garden and receive visitors. Burton's love for his wife, always deep, though never demonstrative, seems to have shown itself more at this time; and in the few remaining years he came to lean on her more and more, making her his confidante in all things. In June they celebrated the Jubilee of Queen