Put it back, and lock the cabinet, and give me the key. Is the draught ready? Label it, 'To be taken at bedtime,' and give it to the nurse, Benjamin--give it to the nurse."While the doctor's lips were issuing these directions, the doctor's hands were occupied in opening a drawer under the desk on which the ledger was placed. He took out some gayly printed cards of admission "to view the Sanitarium, between the hours of two and four P.M.," and filled them up with the date of the next day, "December 10th." When a dozen of the cards had been wrapped up in a dozen lithographed letters of invitation, and inclosed in a dozen envelopes, he next consulted a list of the families resident in the neighborhood, and directed the envelopes from the list. Ringing a bell this time, instead of speaking through a tube, he summoned the man-servant, and gave him the letters, to be delivered by hand the first thing the next morning. "I think it will do," said the doctor, taking a turn in the Dispensary when the servant had gone out--"I think it will do." While he was still absorbed in his own reflections, the nurse re-appeared to announce that the lady's room was ready; and the doctor thereupon formally returned to the study to communicate the information to Miss Gwilt.
She had not moved since he left her. She rose from her dark corner when he made his announcement, and, without speaking or raising her veil, glided out of the room like a ghost.
After a brief interval, the nurse came downstairs again, with a word for her master's private ear.
"The lady has ordered me to call her to-morrow at seven o'clock, sir," she said. "She means to fetch her luggage herself, and she wants to have a cab at the door as soon as she is dressed. What am I to do?""Do what the lady tells you," said the doctor.
"She may be safely trusted to return to the Sanitarium."The breakfast hour at the Sanitarium was half-past eight o'clock.
By that time Miss Gwilt had settled everything at her lodgings, and had returned with her luggage in her own possession. The doctor was quite amazed at the promptitude of his patient.
"Why waste so much energy?" he asked, when they met at the breakfast-table. "Why be in such a hurry, my dear lady, when you had all the morning before you?""Mere restlessness!" she said, briefly. "The longer I live, the more impatient I get."The doctor, who had noticed before she spoke that her face looked strangely pale and old that morning, observed, when she answered him, that her expression--naturally mobile in no ordinary degree--remained quite unaltered by the effort of speaking. There was none of the usual animation on her lips, none of the usual temper in her eyes. He had never seen her so impenetrably and coldly composed as he saw her now. "She has made up her mind at last," he thought. "I may say to her this morning what I couldn't say to her last night."He prefaced the coming remarks by a warning look at her widow's dress.
"Now you have got your luggage," he began, gravely, "permit me to suggest putting that cap away, and wearing another gown.""Why?"
"Do you remember what you told me a day or two since?" asked the doctor. "You said there was a chance of Mr. Armadale's dying in my Sanitarium?""I will say it again, if you like."
"A more unlikely chance," pursued the doctor, deaf as ever to all awkward interruptions, "it is hardly possible to imagine! But as long as it is a chance at all, it is worth considering. Say, then, that he dies--dies suddenly and unexpectedly, and makes a Coroner's Inquest necessary in the house. What is our course in that case? Our course is to preserve the characters to which we have committed ourselves--you as his widow, and I as the witness of your marriage--and, _in_ those characters, to court the fullest inquiry. In the entirely improbable event of his dying just when we want him to die, my idea--I might even say, my resolution--is to admit that we knew of his resurrection from the sea; and to acknowledge that we instructed Mr. Bashwood to entrap him into this house, by means of a false statement about Miss Milroy. When the inevitable questions follow, I propose to assert that he exhibited symptoms of mental alienation shortly after your marriage; that his delusion consisted in denying that you were his wife, and in declaring that he was engaged to be married to Miss Milroy; that you were in such terror of him on this account, when you heard he was alive and coming back, as to be in a state of nervous agitation that required my care; that at your request, and to calm that nervous agitation, I saw him professionally, and got him quietly into the house by a humoring of his delusion, perfectly justifiable in such a case; and, lastly, that I can certify his brain to have been affected by one of those mysterious disorders, eminently incurable, eminently fatal, in relation to which medical science is still in the dark.
Such a course as this (in the remotely possible event which we are now supposing) would be, in your interests and mine, unquestionably the right course to take; and such a dress as _that_ is, just as certainly, under existing circumstances, the wrong dress to wear.""Shall I take it off at once?" she asked, rising from the breakfast-table, without a word of remark on what had just been said to her.
"Anytime before two o'clock to-day will do," said the doctor.
She looked at him with a languid curiosity--nothing more. "Why before two?" she inquired.
"Because this is one of my 'Visitors' Days,' And the visitors'
time is from two to four."
"What have I to do with your visitors?"