"Marian, come here. Come, child, come," the sick man cried in feeble
imploring tones. "What, are you afraid of me? Is this death? Am I dead,
and parted from her? Would anything else keep her from me when I call for
her, the poor child that loved me so well? And I have wished myself free
of her--God forgive me!--wished myself free."
The words were muttered in broken gasping fragments of sentences; but
Gilbert heard them and understood them very easily. Then, after looking
about the room, and looking full at Gilbert without seeing him, John
Saltram fell back upon his tumbled pillows and closed his eyes. Gilbert
heard a slipshod step in the outer room, and turning round, found himself
face to face with the laundress--that mature and somewhat depressing
matron whom he had sought out a little time before, when he wanted to
discover Mr. Saltram's whereabouts.
This woman, upon seeing him, burst forth immediately into jubilation.
"O, sir, what a providence it is that you've come!" she cried. "Poor dear
gentleman, he has been that ill, and me not knowing what to do more than
a baby, except in the way of sending for a doctor when I see how bad he
was, and waiting on him myself day and night, which I have done faithful,
and am that worn-out in consequence, that I shake like a haspen, and
can't touch a bit of victuals.
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