Horton had
begun to lose heart about his patient. There was nothing obscure in the
case, but the patient's importance made the treatment a serious matter,
and the surgeon begged to be allowed to summon Sir William Jenner.
This, however, Lady Maulevrier refused.
'I don't want any fuss made about me,' she said. 'I am content to trust
myself to your skill, and I beg that no other doctor may be summoned.'
Mr. Horton understood his patient's feelings on this point. She had a
sense of humiliation in her helplessness, and, like some wounded animal
that crawls to its covert to die, she would fain have hidden her misery
from the eye of strangers. She had allowed no one, not even Maulevrier,
to be informed of the nature of her illness.
'It will be time enough for him to know all about me when he comes
here,' she said. 'I shall be obliged to see him whenever he does come.'
Maulevrier had spent Christmas and New Year in Paris, Mr. Hammond still
his companion. Her ladyship commented upon this with a touch of scorn.
'Mr. Hammond is like the Umbra you were reading about the other day in
Lord Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii,"' she said to Mary.
Pages:
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289