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Page 78
"Whom are your letters from?" Bennett demanded by way of a beginning.
Lloyd replaced the hairpin in her hair, answering:
"From Dr. Street, from Louise Douglass, and from--Mr. Campbell."
"Hum! well, what do they say? Dr. Street and--Louise Douglass?"
"Dr. Street asks me to take a very important surgical case as soon as I
get through here, 'one of the most important and delicate, as well as
one of the most interesting, operations in his professional experience.'
Those are his words. Louise writes four pages, but she says nothing;
just chatters."
"And Campbell?" Bennett indicated with his chin the third rather
voluminous letter at Lloyd's elbow. "He seems to have written rather
more than four pages. What does he say? Does he 'chatter' too?"
Lloyd smoothed back her hair from one temple.
"H'm--no. He says--something. But never mind what he says. Ward, I must
be going back to the City. You don't need a nurse any more."
"What's that?" Bennett's frown gathered on the instant, and with a sharp
movement of the head that was habitual to him he brought his one good
eye to bear upon her.
Lloyd repeated her statement, answering his remonstrance and
expostulation with:
"You are almost perfectly well, and it would not be at all--discreet for
me to stay here an hour longer than absolutely necessary. I shall go
back to-morrow or next day."
"But, I tell you, I am still very sick. I'm a poor, miserable, shattered
wreck."
He made a great show of coughing in hollow, lamentable tones.
"Listen to that, and last night I had a high fever, and this morning I
had a queer sort of pain about here--" he vaguely indicated the region
of his chest. "I think I am about to have a relapse."
"Nonsense! You can't frighten me at all."
"Oh, well," he answered easily, "I shall go with you--that is all. I
suppose you want to see me venture out in such raw, bleak weather as
this--with my weak lungs."
"Your weak lungs? How long since?"
"Well, I--I've sometimes thought my lungs were not very strong."
"Why, dear me, you poor thing; I suppose the climate at Kolyuchin Bay
_was_ a trifle too bracing--"
"What does Campbell say?"
"--and the diet too rich for your blood--"
"What does Campbell say?"
"--and perhaps you did overexert--"
"Lloyd Searight, what does Mr. Campbell say in that--"
"He asks me to marry him."
"To mum--mar--marry him? Well, damn his impudence!"
"Mr. Campbell is an eminently respectable and worthy gentleman."
"Oh, well, I don't care. Go! Go, marry Mr. Campbell. Be happy. I forgive
you both. Go, leave me to die alone."
"Sir, I will go. Forget that you ever knew an unhappy wom--female, whose
only fault was that she loved you."
"Go! and sometimes think of me far away on the billow and drop a silent
tear--I say, how are you going to answer Campbell's letter?"
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