Christian fiction; Medical fiction; Scotland -- Fiction; Surgeons -- Fiction; Wingfold, Thomas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"No one will. But if any one should--come here, I will show you a place
where nobody would find you."
She helped her to rise, and led her from the room to a door in a rather
dark passage. This she opened, and, striking a light, showed an ordinary
closet, with pegs for hanging garments upon. The sides of it were
paneled, and in one of them, not readily distinguishable, was another
door. It opened into a room lighted only by a little window high up in a
wall, through whose dusty, cobwebbed panes, crept a modicum of
second-hand light from a stair.
"There!" said Dorothy. "If you should hear any sound before I come back,
run in here. See what a bolt there is to the door. Mind you shut both.
You can close that shutter over the window too if you like--only nobody
can look in at it without getting a ladder, and there isn't one about
the place. I don't believe any one knows of this room but myself."
Juliet was too miserable to be frightened at the look of it--which was
wretched enough. She promised not to leave the house, and Dorothy went.
Many times before she returned had Juliet fled from the sounds of
imagined approach, and taken refuge in the musty dusk of the room
withdrawn. When at last Dorothy came, she found her in it trembling.
She came, bringing a basket with every thing needful for breakfast. She
had not told her father any thing: he was too simple, she said to
herself, to keep a secret with comfort; and she would risk any thing
rather than discovery while yet she did not clearly know what ought to
be done. Her version of the excellent French proverb--_Dans le doute,
abstiens-toi_--was, _When you are not sure, wait_--which goes a little
further, inasmuch as it indicates expectation, and may imply faith. With
difficulty she prevailed upon her to take some tea, and a little bread
and butter, feeding her like a child, and trying to comfort her with
hope. Juliet sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, the very
picture of despair, white like alabaster, rather than marble--with a
bluish whiteness. Her look was of one utterly lost.
"We'll let the fire out now," said Dorothy; "for the sun is shining in
warm, and there had better be no smoke. The wood is rather scarce too. I
will get you some more, and here are matches: you can light it again
when you please."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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