The professional nurse had
been dismissed before they left London, and Gilbert was now the invalid's
only attendant. The woman had performed her office tolerably well, after
the manner of her kind; but the presence of a sick nurse is not a
cheering influence, and John Saltram was infinitely relieved by her
disappearance.
"How good you are to me, Gilbert!" he said, that first evening of his
sojourn at Hampton, after he had recovered from his faint, and was lying
on the sofa sipping a cup of tea. "How good! and yet you are my friend no
longer; all friendship is at an end between us. Well, God knows I am as
helpless as that man who fell among thieves; I cannot choose but accept
your bounty."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
AN ILL-OMENED WEDDING.
After that promise wrung from her by such a cruel agony, that fatal bond
made between her and Stephen Whitelaw, Ellen Carley's life seemed to
travel past her as if by some enchantment. Time lost its familiar
sluggishness; the long industrious days, that had been so slow of old,
flew by the bailiff's daughter like the shadows from a magic-lantern. At
the first, after that desperate miserable day upon which the hateful
words were uttered that were to bind her for life to a detested master,
the girl had told herself that something must happen to prevent the
carrying out of this abhorrent bargain.
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