"Rather much--but don't be frightened," he answered in a difficult
whisper, and turning himself to obtain an easier position if possible.
"A little water, please."
She ran across into the dining-room, and brought a bottle and glass,
from which he eagerly drank. He could then speak much better, and with
her help got upon the nearest couch.
"Are you dying, Edgar?" she said. "Do speak to me!"
"I am half dead," said Fitzpiers. "But perhaps I shall get over
it....It is chiefly loss of blood."
"But I thought your fall did not hurt you," said she. "Who did this?"
"Felice--my father-in-law!...I have crawled to you more than a mile on
my hands and knees--God, I thought I should never have got here!...I
have come to you--be-cause you are the only friend--I have in the world
now....I can never go back to Hintock--never--to the roof of the
Melburys! Not poppy nor mandragora will ever medicine this bitter
feud!...If I were only well again--"
"Let me bind your head, now that you have rested."
"Yes--but wait a moment--it has stopped bleeding, fortunately, or I
should be a dead man before now. While in the wood I managed to make a
tourniquet of some half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could
in the dark....But listen, dear Felice! Can you hide me till I am well?
Whatever comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly
gone, you know--and after this I would not care to recover it if I
could."
By this time Felice's tears began to blind her. Where were now her
discreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him
in his pain, and trouble, and poverty, was her single thought. The
first step was to hide him, and she asked herself where. A place
occurred to her mind.
She got him some wine from the dining-room, which strengthened him
much. Then she managed to remove his boots, and, as he could now keep
himself upright by leaning upon her on one side and a walking-stick on
the other, they went thus in slow march out of the room and up the
stairs. At the top she took him along a gallery, pausing whenever he
required rest, and thence up a smaller staircase to the least used part
of the house, where she unlocked a door. Within was a lumber-room,
containing abandoned furniture of all descriptions, built up in piles
which obscured the light of the windows, and formed between them nooks
and lairs in which a person would not be discerned even should an eye
gaze in at the door. The articles were mainly those that had belonged
to the previous owner of the house, and had been bought in by the late
Mr. Charmond at the auction; but changing fashion, and the tastes of a
young wife, had caused them to be relegated to this dungeon.