Lady Markham managed her affairs always in a business-like way. She sent to inquire what was the usual hour of the doctor’s visit, and timed her arrival so as to meet him, and receive all the information he could give. Even the medical details of the case were not beyond Lady Markham’s comprehension. She had a brief but very full consultation with the medical man in the little parlour down-stairs, and promptly issued her orders for nurses and all that could possibly be wanted for the patient. Two nurses at once--one for the day, and the other for the night; ice by the cart-load; the street to be covered with hay; any traffic that it was possible to stop, arrested. These directions Frances heard while she sat anxious and trembling in the brougham, and watched the doctor--a humble and undistinguished practitioner of the neighbourhood, stirred into excited interest by the sudden appearance of the great lady, with her liberal ideas, upon the scene--hurrying away. Lady Markham then disappeared again into the house,--the small, trim, shallow, London lodging-house, with a few scrubby plants in its little balconies on the first floor, where the windows were open, but veiled by sun-blinds. Something that sounded like incessant talking came from these windows--a sound to which Frances paid no attention at first, thinking it nothing but a conversation, though curiously carried on without break or pause. But after a while the monotony of the sound gave her a painful sensation. The street was very quiet, even without the hay. Now and then a cart or carriage would come round the corner, taking a short-cut from one known locality to another. Sometimes a street cry would echo through the sunshine. A cart full of flowering-plants, with a hoarse-voiced proprietor, went along in stages, stopping here and there; but through all ran the strain of talk, monologue or conversation, never interrupted. The sound affected the girl’s nerves, she could not tell why. She opened the door of the brougham at last, and went into the narrow little doorway of the house, where it became more distinct,--a persistent dull strain of speech. All was deserted on the lower floor, the door of the sitting-room standing open, the narrow staircase leading to the sick man’s rooms above. Frances felt her interest, her eager curiosity, grow at every moment. She ran lightly, quickly up-stairs. The door of the front room, the room with the balconies, was ajar; and now it became evident that the sound was that of a single voice, hoarse, not always articulate, talking. Oh, the weary strain of talk, monotonous, unending--sometimes rising faintly, sometimes falling lower, never done, without a pause. That could not be raving, Frances said to herself. Oh, not raving! Cries of excitement and passion would have been comprehensible. But there was something more awful in the persistency of the dull choked voice. She said to herself it was not George Gaunt’s voice: she did not know what it was.